


Waiting for the Dam to Break

by saababa



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, supportive team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2018-12-07 17:25:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saababa/pseuds/saababa
Summary: It took a whole month to track down the Galra ship that had captured Lance. A whole month of frustration, guilt and dead-end leads before the remaining paladins could launch their rescue.It only took a month for Lance to lose his mind.





	1. The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on here, so please let me know if I have tagged or warned or rated or formatted incorrectly, thanks!
> 
> So I've been working on this fic for several months now, I started it before season 2 came out so it's set sometime pre-wormhole malfunction. I'm a very slow writer (getting the words from my brain to the page is a bit like pulling teeth) and have been stuck on chapter 4 for ages, but I've finally sorted that out and have a solid outline for the rest of the story and know pretty much exactly what I want to write (I make no promises on speed though, sorry!) and I just wanted to post this and get the ball rolling before season 3 comes out (which is happening so soon! I'm so excited!!). 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading :)
> 
> Do we still need disclaimers? I don't own anything, and am not making a profit!

 

Keith and Hunk ran down another endless corridor. Single shots from Hunk’s bayard blasted the few Galran drones they passed out of the way, and they never halted in their desperate sprint.

Pidge and Shiro were in their lions serving as an explosive distraction at the other end of the ship with Allura and Coran providing backup from the Castle, but they were seriously outgunned in this attack. It was meant to be a quick in and out mission, not the time to properly engage the enemy.

“Take a left up ahead, and he should be in the room at the end of that corridor!” Coran’s voice directed them through their helmets.

Keith put on an extra burst of speed, now that their target was finally so close after so long. He ducked past two sentry drones as he rounded the corner, trusting Hunk at his back to take them down as he rushed at the final obstacle, whirling his bayard sword to take out the remaining set of sentries guarding the door.

Time seemed to slow for Keith and the sound of his own desperate breaths and rapid heartbeat filled his ears as the robots hit the floor. The last month of frantic searching had finally come to an end.

Just one last door and they would have Lance back.

He jumped, brought back to the present when Hunk blasted the lock off the door, and quickly followed him through into the dank cell.

It was empty but for a haggard figure curled up against the far wall. His legs were drawn up to his chest but his arms dangled in chains, suspended above his head and stretched out to each side in a loose V-shape, useless. His clothes were tattered and filthy, his skin a shade darker with a thick coating of grime.

He did not move as they clattered through the door.

“Lance?!” Hunk let out the breath he had been holding and rushed to his friend’s side. “Holy quiznak, oh my God we found you!”

Keith held back at the door. The quiet stillness of the room was unsettling and suddenly he couldn’t bring himself to move closer, to see what had been done to Lance any clearer. The Blue paladin was too still, too small, too quiet. Keith’s guilt churned heavily in his gut. He should really keep a look out at the door, he thought. This rescue was going way too smoothly so far, and Hunk could look after Lance better than he could anyway, he had this. They would also need to find the keys to those chains…

He turned back like a coward and started searching the drones they had taken down.

 

Hunk rambled as he found Lance’s pulse and checked him over for injury, “Don’t worry buddy, we’re getting you out of here, everything’s gonna be fine ok? Ok. Come on look at me now, let me know you’re ok yeah? It’s me Hunk, and Keith’s here too, come on buddy…”

Finding nothing obviously wrong he gently patted Lance’s cheek, trying to rouse him.

“Come on now Lance, you gotta wake up, we’re getting you out” he said.

Lance’s eyelids fluttered and his head lolled towards Hunk. He started muttering something too low for Hunk to hear.

“Lance? What? You gotta speak up man, come on wake up, you’re gonna be ok now, talk to me...”

“I said, shut up.” Lance whispered turning his head back and hunching his shoulders. He looked like he was trying to curl up as small as he could but his arms were still stretched apart over his head by the chains. “I’m not falling for this again, not this time. You’re not real…”

“Wait, what? Of course I’m real!” Hunk grabbed Lance’s arm. “I’m here now, we’re both here.” He looked back to the door to Keith for support. “Keith’s here, and I’m here and I know we took a long time and I’m so, so sorry Lance, but please man, we’re here now, we’re getting you out. Come on Lance...”

The longer Hunk rambled the more tense Lance seemed to get, curling into himself. His face scrunched up as though he was trying to block out everything around him.

“Stopitstopitstopitstopit,Notrealnotrealnotrealnotreal..” Lance panted out his mantra quietly and kept ignoring Hunk.

 

“Keith?!”

 

From outside the cell, Keith heard the desperation in Hunk’s voice and abandoned his search, steeling himself for what he might find as he ran back in.

He stopped behind the bigger paladin, not sure what was wrong or what to do, before he heard Lance’s frantic muttering.

“I don’t think he’s hurt too bad but he’s freaking out, he doesn’t think we’re real.” Hunk looked totally lost as he stared helplessly down at his friend. “He won’t believe anything I say, Keith what do we do?”

And Keith didn’t know.

He’d stuffed his pockets full of bandages as they’d left the Castle in what was retrospectively a pathetic attempt to feel more prepared for the awful conditions they might find Lance in. But he was not prepared for this, bandages couldn’t heal his mind…

 _Well, at least he isn’t dead_ , his own mind chipped in helpfully. A small comfort but it certainly could have been worse?...

No, damn it this was all his fault.

Keith swallowed down his rising anxiety and finally reached out to Lance.

“Lance? Uh.. It’s Keith?... Look I don’t know what you think is going on, but I promise you, we’re really here now and we’re getting you out” he said.

Lance quieted and Hunk shot a hopeful smile at Keith before Lance’s head tilted up and they got their first good look at him.  The smiles froze on their faces.

Lance looked wrecked.

Dark bags nearly swallowed his eyes and his cheekbones jutted out through tight, waxy skin. His usually flawless complexion was mottled and something which looked like dried blood crusted his hairline and had dribbled down the sides of his face though there was no visible wound. He was clearly exhausted, his eyes were frighteningly blank and his pupils were blown wide. Despite this, he managed to spit defiantly at them through cracked lips “I _know_ you’re not real. Guess the last dose wasn’t high enough because I _know_ _this time_.  I know you’re not them, you’ve never been them and I won’t believe it again _._ ”

He rolled his head against the wall so he was looking up to the ceiling before shouting with false bravado “You hear that?! I KNOW THEY’RE NOT REAL! I’M NOT FALLING FOR IT SO JUST COME ON IN AND LET’S KILL THEM ALREAD—!”

The sound of a huge explosion cut him off as it echoed down the halls and the ship rumbled beneath their feet.

Pidge’s strained voice suddenly piped up from their helmets “Ugh, guys? I don’t know how much longer we can distract these guys without accidently blowing up the whole damn ship with you in it! You gotta hurry up and get out of there, have you found Lance yet?”

Hunk stared forlornly down at Lance as his eyes closed and he started his mantra again, whispered like a prayer “they’renotrealnotrealnotrealnotreal…”.

“Uhh… We’ve almost got him, just a little hiccup, but we’re working on it…” Hunk said.

“What’s happened, is he ok? Do you need back up?” That was Shiro. He sounded tense and Keith could hear the heavy fire he was under in the background. They had to wrap this up fast.

“We’re ok Shiro, just… confused, but don’t worry we’ll get him out” Keith said. He stood up and activated his bayard. They didn’t have time to find keys now, he’d just have to cut through the chains and they’d figure out how to remove the manacles back at the Castle.

But when he stepped over to Lance’s right arm he had to stop as Lance flinched away. His whole body jerked and pushed back against the wall as he tried to move away from Keith. His arm stretched where it was held by the manacle around his wrist, now cutting into the meat of his hand as he wriggled it desperately and strained against the chains. His breathing sped up and his panic and fear shone through his eyes as he stared up at Keith and his bayard.

“Oh ok this again, that’s ok we can do this,” Lance started rambling. “I know it’s not Keith this time though notKeithnotKeithnotKeith-“ his eyes shut tight and he was clearly talking just to himself now. “notKeithnotKeith, hooooo boy ok, this won’t be fun, that thing is sharp… ok, ok come on then let’s do this notKeith, Keith’s already dead you killed him, he’s dead, now you can handle his stupid sword –FAKEsword it’s not even Keith, notKeith, fake-sword, notKeith, FAKEsword—“ he was practically hyperventilating by the end of this weird pep talk and Keith didn’t know what to do.

“Lance it’s me, _it’s Keith_ , I’m not dead, and I’m not going to hurt you but I’ve got to cut you down, we don’t have much time, we’ve got to get out of here.” He looked to Hunk for help but he looked just as helpless as Keith felt.

They didn’t have time for this.

Keith tried to stay as far from Lance as he could as he started using his bayard to hack at the end of the chain furthest from his wrist. Hunk was trying to talk Lance down from his panic, keeping his voice low and calm.

It must have taken no more than ten seconds but to Keith it felt like hours before the chain gave way and Lance’s arm dropped heavily to smack against the floor. There was a moment of silence as they all stared at the limp arm before Lance unfroze. He didn’t look up but his voice was desperately hopeful as he whispered “K-Keith?..”

“Yeah Lance, I’m right here. God, I’m-I’m so sorry Lance. But we’re here now and we’re getting you out. You’re a little confused but we’re real this time I promise you. Just let me free your other arm and we’ll get you back to the Castle.”

“Keith. But… no… you shouldn’t be here… you-you can’t be here… I k-killed you… so you can’t… unless- when did they get you out?! ‘Cause they killed Shiro _every_ time, s-so how did you escape?!” Lance finally met his eyes and Keith noticed again the way his pupils were fixed and dilated.

“We just got here Lance, me and Hunk, look we’re both fine” he tried.

Hunk squatted down again next to Lance and tapped his leg, trying to get the Blue paladin to look at him. “Lance buddy, you gotta calm down, everything’s going to be ok, ok?”

“No….” Lance moaned “no, no you don’t understand….” He finally looked at Hunk and this time it seemed he really saw him. “H-Hunk?” His eyes swam with unshed tears.

“Yeah Lance, it’s really me buddy.”

Something dark clouded behind Lance’s eyes and his voice dropped to a whisper “But Hunk… I-I killed you too… S-So many times, oh my God, Hunk please, I’m so sorry-“ his tears spilled over and any progress they thought they’d made was lost. “Hunk run, please, you can’t be here, don’t get caught again— where’s Pidge?! Don’t let them get her, don’t make me choose again dude, I can’t— Hunk you can’t trust me, _please I’m so sorry—“_

Keith stepped carefully around to Lance’s left side and cut through the second chain while Lance was distracted. Lance froze again when his left arm flopped down next to him, staring at it like it belonged to someone else.

“Come on Lance, think you can walk?” Keith crouched ready to take Lance’s left side and help him up as Hunk moved to his right. Lance turned his wide-eyed stare to him and shook his head desperately.

“No, Keith you don’t understand, I’ll kill you all, just like last time.”

“Last time? Lance this is the only time we’ve ever been here, trust me. Please, we need to get moving, we don’t have much time.” Keith hauled Lance’s arm over his shoulder and moved in close to him, throwing an arm around his waist as Hunk mirrored his position on the right side. “We’re going to help you stand up now Lance, we’ve seriously got to move.” They stood slowly, dragging Lance upright between them muttering furiously. He struggled weakly and refused to get his feet under him, trying to make himself as heavy and difficult to move as possible. His breathing became ragged again, hitching over barely controlled sobs.

“P-Please Keith, I can’t do this again, _please_ don’t make me do this again…”

Keith felt his heart breaking even as he steeled it against Lance’s pleas. He met Hunk’s eyes and nodded toward the door.

“We don’t have time, we can drag him if we have to but Hunk we’ve got to go _now_.”

As if to make his point another booming explosion rocked the ship as they took a stumbling step towards the exit. Lance dug his heels in and flailed his arms in one last desperate effort to shake them off. It was pathetically easy for them to just tighten their grips and continue forward despite Lance’s weak struggles and he threw his head back in denial and screamed again at the ceiling.

“It’s not real-- IT’S NOT REAL! PLEASE! I DON’T BELIEVE THEM, I’M NOT ESCAPING, _I’M NOT TRYING TO ESCAPE!”_

Hunk was keeping up a soothing stream of nonsense, trying to hush Lance and calm him down but every slow step they took closer to freedom made Lance more and more hysterical until they reached the threshold of his cell and the final step through the doorway seemed to break something in Lance. He slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, the fight gone out of him, just a dead weight dragging between the two paladins.

Hunk ducked his head a little to check if he had passed out. (He was kind of hoping that he had).

But when he saw Lance’s face he understood.

Lance had stopped struggling, sure. Resigned himself to whatever new torment he thought they were dragging him towards perhaps, but his eyes were scrunched up tight and his lips moved frantically, muttering words Hunk couldn’t quite make out under his breath.  He was resisting the only way he could, protecting himself by cutting off as much sensory input as possible and trying to shut it all out. It broke Hunk’s heart to see his friend, usually so loud and carefree, reduced to this fearful quiet. Lance had always controlled what he allowed others to see of his emotions, hiding his insecurities behind a solid mask of flashy confidence, but there was no trace of that now. There was no barrier protecting Hunk from the raw fear and pain radiating off his friend and it was so wrong to be able to read Lance so easily.

As they fled back through the labyrinth of corridors, Hunk felt the slow burn of his protective rage boil up within him. Once Lance was safe, he vowed, once they got him healed, Hunk was going to rain _fire_ down upon the Galran Empire with all the burning wrath of Hell itself.

Zarkon would pay for this.

Hunk would see to it personally.

 

When they finally dragged Lance into the stealth pod they had arrived in Keith updated the others through the comms and called for the Infirmary to be ready when they got back.

“How bad is it Keith?” Shiro’s voice was tight and unhappy.

Keith paused in his take-off procedures to glance quickly back at where Hunk was crouched next to Lance in the chair they’d dropped him in, still fruitlessly trying to bring him back to reality. His frantic mantra was finally audible in the quiet of the pod and Keith felt his guilt surge up his throat again to choke him.

His voice cracked as he said “I think we took too long Shiro. He’s really messed up, I mean… _really_ messed up, and it’s… his mind, he- he thinks we’re all dead, he can’t tell what’s real anymore,” he took a deep breath, “Shiro, he doesn’t believe that _we’re_ real.”

 

 

 


	2. The Infirmary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos! I'm thrilled that people are reading and enjoying my story!!
> 
> (AND I'M SO EXCITED SEASON 3 COMES OUT TOMORROW!!!)

 

 

Hunk and Keith managed to get Lance back to the Infirmary eventually.

He didn’t struggle against them, but he wasn’t exactly helping them either- he just allowed them to drag him and move him about as they pleased. Despite Hunk’s best efforts to coax him out of it, his eyes stayed screwed shut and his lips kept moving in an endless stream of “nothing’s real, nothing’s real” although he didn’t seem to have the breath or energy left to properly vocalise it anymore.

Keith had briefed everyone over the comms about Lance’s condition as they travelled back, so he wasn’t surprised to find that Coran, Shiro and Pidge had made it there before them and were waiting anxiously with the scanners and cryo-pods. Allura had had to stay on the bridge to control the wormhole and steer the ship quickly away to safety.

They settled Lance onto a bench and stepped back to let Coran and Pidge through with their hand-held scanners. Shiro patted them both on the back with a weary “Good job guys.”

Keith looked up at him incredulously.

“I mean, I know it’s been a long month,” Shiro elaborated, “and I know it hasn’t exactly turned out like we’d hoped, but you did it. We got him back and he’s going to be ok.”

Hunk looked more miserable than Keith had ever seen him when he managed to voice the scepticism that Keith was feeling too.

“Is he though?”

Shiro’s expression became troubled and they all looked back to where Coran had finished scanning Lance.

“He’s going to be ok isn’t he Coran?” Shiro’s voice seemed to echo emptily around them.

The silence stretched uncomfortably as Coran read the reports from both his and Pidge’s scanners.

“Well he’s not about to drop dead so that’s the good news” he finally said, breaking the tension. He took a deep breath and when he spoke again his voice was hesitant. “There’s evidence that he’s been subjected to an accelerated healing pod though, similar to our own but rather more ah, experimental.”

Shiro shuddered and took an involuntary step back. Coran stopped and turned to him questioningly.

“I-I remember those…” he said quietly.

Keith didn’t like the way Shiro had gone pale and shaky. Surely it was a good thing that Lance had been healed already…

“ _Dread-pods_ the prisoners called them, because they weren’t… there was nothing _med_ ical about them…” Shiro continued. His eyes looked far away and his voice was haunted. “After a bad fight in the Arena they would take us… They were so narrow. There was no room to move once you were in there, you just had to stand… and once that door closed it was… well, it was what I imagine food in a microwave must feel like. Like there was no air, everything was electric and every nerve… It- it hurt.” He swallowed heavily and Keith knew an understatement when he heard one. “And then you could feel yourself healing, but it wasn’t right, and sometimes it could last for days and it was worse than… Well a lot of prisoners in the Arena, once they got hurt bad enough… Sometimes they wanted a quicker end… sometimes that was actually mercy…” He stared down at his Galra hand in disgust, and his last words sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than them.

Keith tentatively put his hand on Shiro’s shoulder and the touch seemed to bring him back to the present. He shifted uncomfortably when he noticed he was now the centre of attention.

“Sorry, that wasn’t… we were talking about Lance…” He cleared his throat awkwardly and they could all see the effort it took him to push those memories back down. He was trembling slightly and his prosthetic hand clenched and unclenched unconsciously at his side.

Hunk pressed into Shiro’s other side and put an arm around his shoulders, offering a quiet support that Shiro accepted gratefully. Leaning back against the comforting solidness of the Yellow Paladin, he managed to ground himself completely back in the present.

“I’m sorry Shiro,” Coran said with sincere sympathy. “That matches with other accounts I’ve come across of the things. From what I understand they are highly unstable and built only for maximum speed, not the precision or comfort necessary for true healing.” He turned back to Lance who had started rocking himself back and forth on the bench, arms cuddled around his torso with his hands tucked under his arms, out of sight, and his head still low, eyes shut tight and mouthing his unceasing mantra.

In the light of Shiro’s awful memories, they regarded him with new sympathy, new guilt, new horror.

The chains still hanging from Lance’s wrists clinked miserably in the quiet of the room.  

“He may be roughly healed now, but he has certainly not been well treated as their prisoner.” Coran moved to rummage through a nearby cupboard and his next words were quiet and bitter but the sound carried clearly in the intense hush of the room.

“The Galra were only ever known to fix things so that they could enjoy breaking them again.”

The paladins collectively flinched to hear it described so bluntly.

Hunk looked like he might be sick.

No one seemed to know what to say and they waited in anxious silence for Coran to find whatever he was looking for and continue his report on Lance’s condition. He eventually emerged with a small box in his hands.

“There are also a high number of unusual toxins running through his system,” he said “which could have caused some pretty intense hallucinations and might explain the confusion our Red Paladin was telling us about earlier.”

He took a small patch out of the box, reminiscent of the nicotine patches on earth which helped smokers quit smoking.

“But hopefully this Detoxification Square will help with that.”

He peeled it apart carefully down the middle so that he held one half in each hand. Then, taking a steadying breath, he quickly slapped them onto either side of Lance’s neck.

The effect was immediate, sending a spasm through Lance’s already tensed shoulders. He managed to choke back his cry and only a tiny heart wrenching whimper escaped him as his breathing became harsh and laboured.

“I’m sorry about that, Number Three,” Coran said softly.

He crouched before Lance and began to murmur soothingly in Altean until eventually the line of Lance’s shoulders started to relax, he stilled his rocking and his breathing evened out once more. After a while, to everyone’s relief, Lance even stopped mouthing “nothing’s real” and his eyes un-scrunched, though they remained closed. He almost looked like he could just be resting now. Coran moved closer and his voice was so quiet and gentle that they could not make out his words. Whatever he was saying was just for Lance.

A few uncomfortable minutes later, though nothing obvious had changed in Lance’s demeanour, Coran’s voice rose enough that they could all hear him again and to their surprise he seemed to have gained Lance’s attention.

“So I’ve been studying up on your earthling medicine, and I understand that you usually start these kinds of mental assessments with some simple questions. So, can you tell me your name please Lance?”

The question even won a tiny, exhausted smile from the Blue paladin. His eyes remained shut but it was encouraging just to see that expression back on his face.  

He surprised them again when he actually replied.

“It’s Lance.” His voice was harsh and gravelly but they could just make out something of his old warmth beneath it. “But you’re not supposed to tell me the answer when you ask the question Coran.”

“Ah yes, my mistake!” Coran smiled. “Well, how about ‘can you tell me your age?’”

Lance sighed. “I’m probably still seventeen I guess, but I have no idea what the date is back home so who even knows?... Can we talk about something less depressing?”

 “Oh right… yes… well what about, ah… ‘who’s the president?’”

Lance snorted a short huff of breath through his nose at that one. “Seriously? We’re in space Coran, who gives a crap about the president? Wait, how do _you_ know who the president is?”

“Aah… Well I don’t,” Coran said sheepishly, “To be honest I’m not even sure I fully understand _what_ a president is, but I thought the other paladins could have confirmed for me if you were correct.” Lance tensed up at the mention of the other paladins so Coran quickly hurried on, “Alright, ok, last one, do you know where you are now Lance?”

A small frown wrinkled Lance’s brow but he deadpanned “Yeah, space.”

The paladins shared a moment of slight disappointment before Coran cleared his throat and tried again.

“Well that’s a little more vague than I’d hoped, but you’re not wrong I suppose … Uh, perhaps if you opened your eyes, you could see where you are now?”

Lance tensed again, his eyes tightened shut and his breathing sped up once more. He shook his head and when he finally replied he spoke quickly and mostly to himself.

“Please don’t leave me Coran. If I open my eyes, I’ll see… I-I know you’re not real, you’re just a voice in my head but I could really use a friendly voice right now man… I just… I need you right now, keeping me sane— well sane-ish I guess, I mean let’s face it, I’m talking to a hallucination, so I guess sanity is pretty much out the window at this point but it’s better not to think about that— you’re still my secret weapon yeah?” He paused as if expecting a reply. “C-Coran?” His voice sounded pathetically small.

“Right! Yes! Of course Lance,” Coran was quick to reassure, trying to play along. “Of course I can be your secret weapon.”  

He threw a quick questioning look over his shoulder at Keith and Hunk, trying to gauge if this was the confusion and madness they had described over the comms.

Keith shrugged at him and tried to keep his voice low. “This is way calmer than he was before, so… At least he doesn’t seem to be scared of you?”

But at the sound of Keith’s voice Lance jumped and tried to move further back on the bench to flatten his back against the wall. His breathing hitched and shuddered as he started his desperate mantra back up, clearly fighting to keep himself under control.

“…Unlike me…” Keith muttered dejectedly.

Coran watched the reaction with sharp eyes before gesturing to the paladins to move back and be silent. He remained crouched in front of Lance and spoke softly again, slowly calming him down and bringing his focus back away from Keith.

Keith swallowed hard and looked away from the sad scene.

He had spent the last month trying to ignore his guilt by throwing himself into the search for Lance, hoping, _praying_ that they would not be too late. He’d figured that if they got Lance back alive he’d at least have a chance to apologise, a chance to earn Lance’s forgiveness. He’d tried not to believe that they could find Lance alive and still be too late for that.

He was pulled out of his pessimistic thoughts by Shiro’s hand landing on his shoulder. Shiro shook his head pointedly at him and squeezed his shoulder gently. Just because he didn’t want to disturb Lance further by speaking didn’t mean he’d allow Keith to continue beating himself up. The two had always been pretty good with nonverbal communication and Shiro had been trying to make Keith stop blaming himself for the whole past month so he knew Keith would understand what he was saying.

But seeing now the full consequences of his mistakes, Keith couldn’t help but hate himself more. If he had just been a little smarter or faster or more perceptive, Lance never would have ended up like this- this _shell_ of himself.

It wasn’t fair.

Shiro squeezed his shoulder again to get his attention back. His eyes showed the same empathy and understanding they’d viewed him with since Lance went missing and Keith just couldn’t stand it. He didn’t deserve it. Shiro should hate him for what he’d done.

Like Lance did.

He tried to turn away but Shiro’s hand stopped him.  He couldn’t escape it and he knew from experience that Shiro wasn’t going to let him just brush it off.

Aw jeez.

He took a steadying breath and choked down on his emotions. Turning around, he forced himself to meet Shiro’s eyes and nod quickly. Luckily Shiro took it as the part apology, part acceptance that Keith had hoped he would, and let him go with one final squeeze. But he just knew that Shiro was going to hunt him down later to make him talk about it properly. It could never be that easy to shake off Shiro and a good ‘not-everything-is-your-fault-Keith’ pep talk.

They were interrupted as Coran’s voice rose again so that they could make out his words once more.

“Please could you just open your eyes for me Lance?” he asked gently. “Then you’ll be able to see that I’m real.”

Lance just shook his head. “Please stop, I can’t. I can’t do this. Coran is never here.” He said it like a fundamental truth of the universe.

“But I’m here now Lance, it’s me Coran… the Coranic! You would see if you just opened your eyes…”

“NO!”

Lance’s shout was so loud and unexpected; they all jumped at the noise.

He seemed to shrink back into himself after the outburst though.

“They don’t know about Coran, don’t show them Coran, gotta at least keep Coran safe” he muttered.

“What? Lance, what do you mean by that?” Coran latched on to his words.

Lance huddled tighter.

“They can’t use Coran against me like the others, they don’t know enough about him to force me to see him… So as long as I don’t accidently see him on my own, they can’t use him…” he said. “So then, if I ever get out of here, if the others are ever actually real, I’ll be able to know for sure if Coran’s there. I’ll know it’s safe when Coran’s there…”

Keith looked to the others to see if this was making any more sense to them than it was to him. They all had puzzled frowns though, even Pidge, who as the genius of the group he was hoping would have picked up some clue or subtle sign that Lance wasn’t as completely insane as he sounded. Coran _was_ here! Why wouldn’t Lance just open his freaking eyes to believe it? What the hell was he talking about?! God it was such a convoluted and contradictory, typical _Lance_ kind of plan, it made absolutely no sense to Keith.

Apparently Coran was of a similar opinion.

“Ok but I am here now Lance, it’s Coran… right here… in front of you… soooo… you’re safe now?” he tried.

“Nope, no I gotta keep Coran safe from them. They can see what I can see, _they can see what I can see—_ don’t forget Lance, don’t forget that.” Lance’s voice quieted, so they had to strain to hear. He was talking just to himself again.  “Stick to the plan, first gotta get rid of the god damn crown of freaking thorns or whatever the fu—“ he broke off with a wince. His brow pinched and a tightness appeared around his eyes. He grit his teeth and pushed on. “Nonono don’t think about it, just don’t forget, you have to remember if you ever get out. Gotta warn the team, let them all down, gotta warn them, can’t be trusted, _they_ can see what I can see. Gonna have to dig it out of my freaking face before I let them save you—“

“Lance,” Coran gently cut into his increasingly desperate ramble. “Lance what is the ‘Crown of Freaking Thorns’? What are you talking about?”

Lance twitched; startled as though he had forgotten Coran was there.

“Nailed into my freakin’ head!” And he was loud again. Keith thought he might get whiplash trying to keep up with Lance being this unstable. “God damn wrapped some lightening in barbed freaking wire and nailed it onto my face— oh my God” His chest was heaving now, his breathing laboured around painful sounding hitches and his face screwed up in a rictus of remembered pain. He threw his head back, cracking it against the wall behind him and they all instinctively reached forward to stop him but he didn’t do it again, just left his head resting where it had smacked.

He whimpered up at the ceiling and Keith felt the bottom drop out of his stomach when he saw the glistening tracks of tears on his cheeks.

This was so, so wrong, Lance wouldn’t want them to see him like this…

And the dried blood crusting his hairline made sickening sense now. Under the bright lights of the Infirmary, the trails down the sides of his face could be traced back to four main points- two low on his temples back close to his ears, and two higher on his forehead, at the corners of his hairline. That word ‘ _nailed’_ echoed repulsively around Keith’s head.

“Please Coran,” Lance whispered brokenly into the tense silence. “They’re in my head and I can’t… I can’t think straight, it’s so hard to keep track, they make it so foggy… Please don’t hate me, don’t let them hate me, I tried, I’m trying, I’m sorry…”

“Shhh Lance of course I don’t hate you, no one’s blaming you for this” Coran soothed. “Will you let me look at your head please Lance? There’s a lot of blood there but I can’t see any ‘crown’…”

Lance didn’t make any move to show he’d heard the question. It looked like he might be shutting them out again.

“I’m just going to tilt your head to a more comfortable position now Lance. I just need to feel along the top here, see if there’s anything left of this ‘crown’ that we can’t see and that didn’t turn up on the scanners…”

Lance flinched away from the brush of Coran’s fingers. He stifled a whimper and then went unnaturally still.

“Lance?” Coran tried again, his hands gently finding his face and brushing up under his hair. “I just need to check you for this ‘crown’ and make sure you’re ok.”

Lance went so still it was hard to tell if he was even breathing but he didn’t move away this time.

Coran carefully felt along Lance’s hairline, following the line of dried blood. Finding nothing he continued to run his fingers down Lance’s face, just a gentle pressure searching for any bump under the skin or abnormal textures. He felt over Lance’s whole scalp, running his fingers through the oily hair before declaring “There’s nothing here Lance, they must have removed it. I can see where it was, but the wounds have healed over…” 

Lance let out a heavy breath but it didn’t seem to be in relief.

“Wait no… that’s… why? When did—t-they can’t have…”

Slowly, tentatively, he hunched forward, bringing his head down to meet his hands in their protective huddle. Gingerly, with just the very tips of two fingers he explored the sticky edges of his hairline.

“No…” he breathed.

“So you can open your eyes without fear now Lance.”

He jumped again at Coran’s words before seeming to freeze. A look of bewildered hope crossed his face before he quickly clamped down on it.

“So that means… C-Coran?... Are you really…” He couldn’t finish the question, barely holding his hope back with a desperate grip.

“I’m really here Lance. I’m here and you’re safe. You’re in the Castle of Lions, in the Infirmary. We got you out.” Coran’s voice was gentle and he reached out to take Lance’s hands in his.

They were all startled when Lance let out a pained yelp and immediately flinched away from the contact. He hid his hands back under his arms again, tucked back into the protective huddle. The lengths of chain on the manacles around Lance’s wrists clinked loudly in the sudden silence.

“S-Shit sorry.” Lance swallowed. “I ah… they’re just sensitive now, just reflex really… you—what did you want?” The thin veneer of bravado clinging to his words was so painfully familiar, his words sounded so _Lance_ again suddenly, and yet they had never been so obviously fragile before. 

Coran’s face softened with sympathy. “No, no, that was my fault, don’t apologise, just thought maybe if you could feel that I was really here and really me, it might help you to believe it... Silly of me though, should have asked first of course…”

Lance shook his head. “No, that might…” His hands untucked slowly and hovered anxiously before him. His arms trembled, either from the weight of his bonds or the weight of his hope, they couldn’t tell. “They’re um… they’re kind of gross though, so you don’t have to…” he trailed off self-consciously.

“It’s fine Lance, go ahead.” Coran gently encircled Lance’s wrists in his fingers, avoiding the heavy manacles and trailing chains to guide his hands up to his face. Lance led with the backs of his hands and they saw now that his palms and fingers were completely covered by the stretched, angry red and pearlescent puckers of scar tissue.

Keith looked away to the other’s faces to see if watching this was killing them, like it was killing him.

Pidge was frowning fiercely and her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. Hunk had a stream of tears slowly trailing down his cheeks. Keith couldn’t bring himself to look at Shiro again in case the older paladin looked back and saw straight through him.

Coran let Lance caress his cheeks and nose, examine his moustache and the facial markings under his eyes; he let Lance run his fingers softly along his forehead and skim down his jawline.

“Please trust me Lance, I’m really real this time. You said something before, that if I’m really here then it means that you’re safe. Please believe it now Lance, you _are_ safe. We got you out and you’re safe in the Castle of Lions, you can open your eyes now Lance.” Coran’s voice was gentler than they had ever heard it and Lance let out a shaky breath as his wary control seemed to crumble away.

“ _Oh fuck it- please be real please be real this time please let this be real..”_ They all heard Lance’s whisper like a prayer as he let one eye blink quickly open and shut, a child peeking when they shouldn’t, before steeling himself and determinedly opening both eyes to stare intently at Coran’s face.

There was a moment of tense uncertainty, and it felt to Keith as though they were standing on the edge of a terrible darkness, and whether they plunged in or stepped back he wasn’t sure, but the silence was eventually broken when Lance finally came to a decision.

 “Holy quiznak, you’re _real_ ” he whispered reverently.

He carefully drew his hands back but he couldn’t take his eyes off Coran, as though the second he so much as blinked, he would disappear. “They never make me see Coran. So I’ll know when it’s real because Coran’s there too… and now Coran’s here too… he’s _actually_ here… so then…” He turned his head as if to look at the other paladins but his eyes couldn’t seem to leave Coran.

“We’re really real this time Lance.”

Pidge’s dry voice broke the spell and Lance’s eyes finally slid to the paladins.

Team Voltron.

His team.

“ _Holy crap it’s really you guys”_ he breathed.

The tension and fear that had been keeping him up drained away and he slumped against the wall behind him. He looked much smaller suddenly, as exhaustion and relief stole the fight from his body and he seemed to deflate.

Pidge and Hunk rushed forward to claim seats either side of him.

Hunk was all but sobbing as he pulled Lance in for one of his famous hugs and Lance just relaxed into it, finally allowing himself the comfort he had been craving for so long. Even Pidge was a little misty eyed as she shuffled awkwardly next to Lance until she bumped her knee into his, not one for big displays of affection but she made sure that he knew she was there.

Keith and Shiro approached more carefully.

Shiro reached out and gently ruffled Lance’s hair.

“It’s good to have you back Lance” he said.

Lance managed to lift his head out of where it was buried against Hunk’s shoulder.  

His eyes immediately latched onto Keith and he looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Wait, Keith? Oh my God, you-you’re alive?”

Keith looked a little confused but offered Lance an encouraging smile and said “Yeah Lance, I’m fine. Uh... why, you disappointed?” He tried for their usual antagonistic banter to steer this back to something more familiar.

But Lance just snorted softly and didn’t rise to it. His smile was bright and relieved. “N-No I’m glad, I’m… seriously, you have no idea…” he trailed off, looking at Keith speculatively. “Uh, what do you remember?”

Keith glanced quickly to the others for a hint but they seemed equally as confused by Lance’s words. Maybe whatever Coran had slapped on his neck hadn’t got rid of the full effects of those drugs yet…

“Um, about what?” he asked cautiously.

Strangely enough that seemed to be the right answer as Lance let out his breath and relaxed back into Hunk again.

“No it’s nothing” he said, letting his eyes slip shut again. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just… God, I’m so glad they got you out man, I’m so glad you’re ok and… and it wasn’t real…” His sentence trailed off to something mumbled under his breath that none of them could understand.

Keith felt his guilt surge again within him. Was Lance talking about how he got captured? Was Lance just going to brush it all under the rug and pretend like the whole thing wasn’t entirely Keith’s freaking fault? Like Keith could ever forget what he did? He forced himself to swallow his feelings one more time though. Lance was exhausted and probably still high, he would have to talk to him later and make him accept an apology; and he knew he owed Lance an apology whether Lance would have it or not.

“Yeah… Yeah you too Lance, it’s good to have you back” he said, before trying again to steer the conversation back to something more comfortable between them. “The castle’s been too quiet without you randomly yelling about stuff, it was weird. And it wasn’t as fun being the best pilot without you here to get all mad about it.”

To his relief Lance took the bait this time, and he was smiling.

“Pffsht, shut up, at least—“ but he broke off with a flinch.

Keith had reached his fist out to Lance unthinkingly, intending to convey his feelings with a friendly fist bump because that’s what they did, and he was awkward, and it was _Lance._ Instead, when Lance’s eyes had opened lazily and caught sight of Keith’s fist aimed towards him, his arm flew up to protect his head reflexively.

The whole room stopped again for a tic as the tension spiked.

It was Hunk who broke the silence this time.

“Uh Lance, you ok? Don’t worry, you’re safe now remember?” He squeezed Lance gently in his arms.

“S-shit sorry… sorry Keith, I didn’t mean… uh it’s been a rough… I mean, I wasn’t-“ he cut himself off and tried to smile but it looked more like a grimace and Keith hated it.

Lance forced his hand up to meet Keith’s as he stood completely frozen, swiftly brushing their knuckles together before retreating back into Hunk’s embrace.

Keith couldn’t find his breath around the lump in his throat. He ducked his head so he didn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes and quickly muttered “Yeah, don’t worry about it, I get it. I’m sorry…” He shouldn’t be here, he was making Lance worse, Lance must hate him, he didn’t want him around right now, while he tried to recover from what Keith had put him through… He should leave. It would be better for Lance if he didn’t have to see him here, the reason for his suffering…

He stumbled back, hands raising in the universal gesture of harmlessness, before turning swiftly on his heel and fleeing the room.

The silence was awkward after his footsteps retreated until Lance slumped again and hit his head back against Hunk’s chest, obviously upset.

Pidge caught Shiro’s eye and indicated with her head the direction that Keith had fled. Her expression clearly said “We can handle this. You go fix that.”

Shiro nodded and quickly cleared his throat.

“I should probably—“

“Yeah, go after him, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…” Lance said. His initial relief was giving way to a very intense self-consciousness and awareness now of just what a mess he was and how the other Paladins were seeing him like this.

“No, no, no Lance, you don’t have anything to apologise for, none of this is your fault, ok? You shouldn’t be ashamed of your instinctive reactions, after what you’ve been through, we all understand it will take some time for you to adjust. And don’t worry about Keith, you know how bad he is with his emotions. It’s been real tough without you here to keep us all grounded, and Keith just really took it hard, you know? We all did. But it’ll get better from here. So you just concentrate on getting better and I know it might take a while to sink in, but you really are safe now so just… Get some rest, ok? We’ll get you back on your feet in no time, you’re gonna be ok” Shiro said. “I’m really glad you’re back.” He patted Lance’s head one more time before Lance shook him off and sighed.

“Thanks Shiro.” He offered a small smile and nodded for him to head out after the Red pilot.

 

The tension eased from the room once Shiro left and Lance fought his exhaustion as it caught up to him again full force. He shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny of the remaining crew whose full attention had now turned back to him.

He was messed up and more than a little insane, he knew that, and he hated that now they all did too. But he had been drowning for so long in his head and there was a hole inside him that _burned_ , like they had carved a part of his soul away. He flushed with shame as the fog in his mind was starting to lift and somewhere in there he just knew that he needed to be stronger than this. He was always the weak link in this team, and he had just made it more obvious to everyone than ever before. He felt so acutely embarrassed that they had all seen him be so pathetic, but right now he was just too tired and relieved to be able to hide the fact that he was an emotional wreck.

Despite his exhaustion however, he was also terrified to sleep, too scared that when he woke up he would be back in that cell and none of this would have been real. He was really struggling to keep his eyes open though. He was back with his team at last and they were all there and safe and _alive_ and he had relaxed for the first time in far too long.

His eyes had blinked closed before he even realised it and he flinched back awake, struggling against Hunks arms to sit upright. Hunk was too warm, too comfortable. God how long had it been since he had actually, properly slept?

Coran seemed to understand ( _God, this was so humiliating, he was totally safe now but even Coran could tell he was still terrified_ ) and he held Lance’s wrist once more, stroking soothing circles on the back of his hand.

“Don’t worry young paladin,” he said. “What you need most now is rest and we can figure the rest out later. You can trust us now. We’re not going anywhere, and neither are you. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Lance nodded reluctantly, feeling like he was being talked to like a small child; and as much as he resented that, what he hated even more was how much he needed to hear it - how desperately, how gratefully he clung to those words. He should be stronger than that. He was supposed to be a Paladin of Voltron. Thoughts and memories swirled at the edges of his mind and he didn’t want to chase them, but he was sure there was something important there… He only knew that he should be stronger. He _needed_ to be stronger…

His train of thought broke as Hunk shuffled around and jostled him. He was so tired and things were still kinda foggy…

He found himself lying with his head in Hunk’s lap, there were fingers dragging through his greasy hair, running soothingly along his scalp. His legs had been moved up onto the bench where he remembered Pidge had been sitting… A soft blanket fluttered down from somewhere and— ah there she was, tucking it gently around his feet.

He was more comfortable than he could remember being.

“Please stay real” he whispered, pressing his face into Hunks thigh.

“We’re not going anywhere buddy.” Hunk’s reply was firm with his conviction.

Coran continued to murmur comfortingly to Lance as he slowly allowed himself to relax.

Finally, he could rest.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment or kudos!
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	3. The Report & The Capture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was part of the very first idea I had for this fic (and parts of it were very quickly jossed by season 2, and now 3... and I think I have a decent tie in for some parts, but anyway, just remember this fic is set pre-season 2!)
> 
> And please suspend your disbelief at the pop culture references in this chapter! I know Voltron is set in the future, and our current pop culture would no longer be relevant to them, but I strongly headcanon Lance as someone who would reference it a lot, and if I just made up some 'future' pop culture stuff it wouldn't be pop culture to you guys as my audience and so it just wouldn't translate properly, and the whole point of pop culture is that most people understand the reference... anyway, in conclusion, I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

 

Not long after Lance had finally drifted off they noticed the rumble of the engines die down as Allura stationed them safely in orbit of some far distant planet. Hunk wasn’t surprised when she appeared in the Infirmary moments later, taking a second to survey the scene from the door before quietly coming over to join them.

“Report? How is he?” She directed the question to Coran and his back straightened under her gaze as he began.

“Physically? He’s mostly well. The scanners aren’t showing anything more urgent than light bruising across his torso now, though it’s not because he managed to avoid injury while captive…” His tone darkened again as he spoke of Lance’s captivity. “He has a number of new scars, likely knife wounds. He also appears to have damaged his left shoulder fairly recently and the scanners indicate he has had several broken bones at some point, including his ribs, though they are all pretty much healed now. But I think it is his hands which have suffered some of the worst of it.” Coran indicated that Allura should see the damage for herself.

She knelt beside the sleeping paladin and gently took his hand to examine the terrible scarring across his palms and fingers.

“These look like burns” she said.

Coran nodded. “That’s what I thought too. I’ll admit they’ve done a somewhat impressive job in healing them though. Unfortunately the skin is still very sensitive to touch but he has retained a remarkable range of movement and dexterity in his fingers considering the severity of the injury.”

Lance mumbled softly but did not wake when Allura laid his hand back down and stood up.

“I’m sure we have an ointment somewhere which might help lessen the scarring and ease his discomfort” she said, all business as she headed for the heavily stocked medical supply cupboard. “And what of the madness Keith spoke of?”

“Well he’s been very confused and showed alarming signs of heavy psychological scarring, mostly relating to the other paladins. Apparently they have all been used against him in some way and it seemed he could no longer differentiate reliably between his hallucinations and reality. But I also found high levels of toxins in his body. I suspect he’s been kept in the care of Zarkon’s dark druids- it looked like the sort of experimental serum they’ve used to torture our soldiers before. I’ve treated him with the most aggressive Detoxification Squares we have and that’s certainly seemed to help, so I’m hopeful it will be out of his system by the time he wakes again.  I won’t be able to properly assess the injury to his mind until then though to determine how much is truly damaged and how much was just the drugs, so I can’t say for certain whether or not there’s anything more we can do for him, though at the moment it does seem unlikely that we’ll need to start looking for a new paladin for the Blue Lion. But as I said, until he wakes…” Coran trailed off as he turned back to the subject of his report and finally noticed how still and quiet it was in that side of the room.

Hunk and Pidge were both staring at him in muted horror. Hunk’s hand was frozen in the air above Lance’s hair which he had been gently petting. Pidge’s fists were balled again at her sides, so tightly they were white knuckled and the tension carried up her arms and hunched her shoulders.

Oh Quiznak.

It was easy to forget sometimes, that both Coran and Allura came from a heavily militarised planet which had been at war for most of their lives and what was more, that they were both highly ranked officers from highly regarded families within that military. This was not the first of their soldiers they had seen captured and mistreated. They had automatically fallen back on the training that had been rigorously ingrained in them from a young age; distancing themselves from the subject and their emotions, and dealing with the blunt details and hard facts, like good commanders.

But Hunk and Pidge?

They may be the new paladins of Voltron, but they were still practically children and what’s more, they were Lance’s best friends. They were so innocent of the brutalities of war; they should not have had to hear Coran speak of their friend so brusquely.

When Allura turned back to the room, clutching a large medicinal tub, only Coran could see the tightness about her eyes and the slight tremor in her hands, and know that the princess was not as unaffected as she tried to appear.  But she quickly tuned in to the strained atmosphere and immediately understood their mistake. She shared a guilty look with Coran before approaching the traumatised teens.

“Paladins…” she began. “I am sorry that you heard that. It was a mistake to have requested Coran’s report here while you were listening in. But please understand, he is not the first of our soldiers to suffer such atrocities at the hands of the Galra, and just like those soldiers, we will do everything in our power for him to make a full recovery. Now that we all know—“

“Don’t feed us that crap,” Pidge snapped, cutting Allura off. “Lance is not a soldier! He didn’t sign up for this, none of us did! And Coran just said there might not be anything more we can do for him! We literally _just_ got him back and you’re already talking about replacing him! We spent a whole month looking for him and you didn’t give up on him then but one hour of seeing him drugged to his eyeballs and understandably messed up and what, suddenly there’s no hope?”

 “No, that wasn’t—“

“I’m sorry Pidge, but—“

Coran and Allura tried to protest but she wasn’t having it.

“Well I refuse to give up on him ok?! I don’t care what they did to him, he’s stronger than that. _Humans_ are stronger than that! Shiro survived a whole year as a Galra prisoner, Lance can get over one stupid month! He has to be ok because if he’s—if he doesn’t—“ And here her mask of anger slipped briefly and they all saw the fear that was consuming her underneath before she managed to cover it again. “Lance is going to be fine too, he has to. T-They can’t break us that quickly, they can’t be that bad, I won’t accept that.” And they all understood now, that she wasn’t just talking about Lance.

It had been almost a full two years now since her family was taken.

Allura reached out and carefully folded her arms around Pidge, who stiffened at the contact but allowed it, finally quieting down. “Of course, you’re right Pidge,” Allura said. “From what I have seen of you humans, it would surely take many entire lifetimes to ever truly wear you down; especially Lance, he has always seemed particularly spirited.”

“Yes, forgive me Pidge, I should not have spoken so carelessly” Coran added quietly. “I only meant to report the full details of my observations to Allura in order to prepare her in her capacity as our leader, for the absolute worst case. But do not misunderstand. We have not given up on Lance. We have not given up on anyone.”

Pidge quickly scrubbed her forearm across her face, erasing any trace of moisture there might be before stepping away from Allura.

“Yeah, sorry” she muttered. She mostly tried not to think about what might be happening to her father and brother, trying to focus only on finding them instead. But now, finding Lance in the state they had just made that kind of focus impossible. Shiro was understandably messed up after a full year of captivity but for Lance to have lost this much of himself in only one month? It didn’t bode well for the state she might find her family in after two years…

“Is Lance’s condition really that bad?” She looked back up in time to see the tail end of some silent conversation pass between Allura and Coran, but she was not privy its meaning.

Coran looked deeply uncomfortable when he finally answered “Well I would not give you false hope, his recovery will probably be like trying to climb the Quardzik hill carrying a meticulated-gludwup in one hand!… But I’m sure that with the help and support of his fellow paladins, he could make a full recovery. You all share a deep bond through Voltron; you will just have to use it very carefully to aid in his healing.”

Pidge had no idea what half of that was supposed to mean, but Lance was always good at defying the odds. So despite Coran’s warning, she did take hope from his words.

She looked back to Hunk still holding Lance, who amazingly hadn’t even stirred despite her rather loud breakdown. She couldn’t stop her mood from lifting slightly with fond amusement as she noticed the look of constipation on Hunk’s face. He obviously wanted to come over and scoop her up in one of his amazing hugs and make sure she was ok, but he was also currently acting as Lance’s pillow and didn’t want to disturb him by moving; and resisting his urge to comfort her looked like it was causing him physical pain.

 “We’ll get him back Pidge” Hunk offered resolutely instead. “We’ll fix up Lance and then we’ll find your family and get them back too and we can fix them up as well if we need to.”

She allowed his words to soothe her and thought fondly to herself that Hunk was a beautiful cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure.

She snorted a quiet laugh through her nose.

This was her family for now.

She strengthened her resolve to stay.

“Alright then,” she said. “So what do Alteans use to pick locks? ‘Cause give me a couple good bits of wire and I bet I can have those chains off him in three tics…”

 

 -----------

 

When Keith raced out of the Infirmary he didn’t have a particular destination in mind, he just needed to get away from the shell of Lance and clear his head. He eventually stopped running in one of the outer corridors, next to a huge window. He leaned against the glass and stared out into the starry abyss of space, trying to keep his thoughts from dwelling on Lance and his own guilt. Lance was safe now and that was what mattered. Even if Lance hated him more than ever before, even if they couldn’t go back to their stupid, petty rivalry which was edging closer and closer to friendship (at least, it was for Keith), after a whole month they finally had Lance back.

He couldn’t believe it was only a month. Only a month since that stupid argument, another of their petty squabbles but one which, this time, had had far more disastrous consequences than usual. It had started, as many of their arguments did, with an inane question from Lance, trying to cure his boredom.

 

_“Hey so, if we were the Avengers, who would be who d’you think?”_

_Keith rolled his eyes. They were in the hangar with Hunk and Pidge, trying to assess how much damage the Red Lion had sustained on the last mission when Keith had been ambushed by three Galran ships. Lance had draped himself over Blue’s paws nearby, feet kicked up and keeping up an endless stream of pointless chatter._

_“Guys? Come on, who would you be?”_

_Pidge and Hunk disappeared under the Red Lion’s belly with a bunch of tools that Keith didn’t even know the names of let alone how they should be used. He had a working knowledge of earth mechanics and how to do emergency patches on spacecraft, but Altean technology and the amount of damage to be fixed this time was beyond him. That left him as the sole target of Lance’s irritating mood._

_“Come on Keith! You know the Avengers right? Even a loner mullet in the middle of the desert must know about the Avengers!” Lance goaded him._

_Keith resigned himself to another pointless argument._

_“I’d be Captain America” Keith said. “But if you’re not going to be helpful here how about you go and annoy Coran, or Shiro?”_

_“WHAT?!” Lance squawked, totally ignoring the second half of what Keith said, as Keith had known he would. “No freaking way! Do you even hear yourself?! Obviously, if anyone is Captain America it’s me! You’re… You’re Iron Man!” Lance got to his feet in a flail of gangly limbs._

_“What?”_

_Honestly, Keith had only picked Captain America because he was the member of the Avengers Keith was the most familiar with. His parents had bought him a few of the comics when they moved from Korea, trying to get him excited about the stupid new country he didn’t want to go to; and only a year later when his parents died, the comics disappeared somewhere in his new foster home and his interest in superheroes had gone with them. So he didn’t know that much about Iron Man, (and from the way Lance said it, he figured it was intended to insult him) but he knew just enough to throw it back at Lance, because if Lance was going to pick a stupid fight, then Keith wasn’t going to let him win it._

_“Is that the guy with no real super powers who just flies in a robot, hits on anything that moves and is obsessed with how he looks? Don’t project your problems onto me Lance, I’m a much better fit for Captain America than you.”_

_Lance’s face was turning purple and Keith was almost expecting steam to start whistling out of his ears and nose._

_“SCREW YOU KEITH! You’re way more Iron Man than me! You know, flying around all flashy and red and thinking you’re the best at everything, that’s obviously Iron Man. But come on, Blue colour scheme, affinity with ice, great leadership skills, obviously the best looking?” Lance pointed dramatically at himself, “Captain America, right here.”_

_Despite himself, Keith barely managed to supress a laugh. God Lance was just too easy to wind up sometimes._

_“Nope. Listen, Captain America is totally selfless and would sacrifice himself before his team. But last time we did that teamwork exercise, you dodged three different shots and let me, Hunk and Pidge get taken out behind you!” he said._

_“Oh shut up, Coran’s training is dumb, that doesn’t count! What about on_ real _missions, like a few hours ago, when I swooped down to save your ass after you were showing off and got yourself ambushed? That’s totally like Cap and Iron Man.” Lance said smugly._

_“Wha--?! That’s not what happened!” Keith protested._

_“_ OH MY GOD _would you guys knock it off?!”_

_The slam of a hatch flying open made them both jump and spin back to the Red Lion._

_Pidge’s head appeared upside down hanging out of the Red Lions chest. “You’re both idiots! First of all, you’re fighting over the wrong thing, Iron Man is way better than Captain America and everyone knows it. Secondly, neither of you are cool enough to be Cap OR Iron Man so you’re both wrong anyway. Obviously Shiro would be the Cap, ‘cause he’s our leader and Hunk would be Iron Man ‘cause he’s a brilliant engineer and easily the coolest guy on the team. Lance, you’re Hawkeye-_ no don’t interrupt me- _you’ve got the long range, sharpshooter thing going, just accept it and Keith’s Black Widow ‘cause he’s small, fast and deadly. And me? I’d be Bruce Banner.”_

_Lance managed to get his indignant spluttering under control only long enough to indignantly splutter “What?! How are_ you _the Hulk?!”_

_“Um, resident underappreciated genius in Green? Yup that’s Bruce Banner, and that’s me. Now both of you need to shut the hell up and take your stupid argument to someone who gives a crap because some of us are actually working here!” Lance started flailing again before Pidge shut him down. “NO, do not make me come down there Lance, I’ll freaking show you how much like the Hulk I am and YOU WON’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M MAD!”_

_A flying spanner punctuated her point, barely missing Lance’s head as Pidge disappeared back into the depths of the Lion._

_The two boys slowly looked down at the spanner and back to each other in stunned silence._

_“Yeah ok, so Pidge is the Hulk, wanna go see what Shiro’s doing?”  Lance hurried for the door and with no hesitation Keith followed after him. He wasn’t any use down here repairing Red anyway and honestly, Pidge was downright scary sometimes._

 

Keith watched the stars and wished he could make his mind as clear and empty as space was.

Less than an hour after that fight they had been sent out in the Blue Lion on a supposedly easy scouting mission. Shiro had gotten sick of their bickering and tried to direct their energy towards something more productive.

Keith had been thinking back and forth over every aspect of that stupid mission for the last month, dwelling on what he had done wrong, what he should have done differently. He couldn’t help the guilt that sat heavy in his gut no matter what Shiro said. He knew it was his fault that Lance was taken. Lance was right to be scared of him, Keith was as bad as those monsters.

 

_Keith held on for dear life as Lance piloted the Blue Lion down to the planet the Castle was currently orbiting. Coran had flagged it as free from the Galra Empire and uninhabited, so Keith and Lance were tasked with planting a bunch of data probes on the surface so they could measure its chemical composition and its potential for supporting life.  They had been scouting as many Galra-free, uninhabited planets as they could find recently, hoping to find one which might be suitable to serve as a new home base planet for them to work out of, and as somewhere safe they could bring the prisoners they rescued from Zarkon whose own planets had been destroyed._

_Keith had enjoyed needling Lance back in the Castle- riling the other boy up was just so easy, but he was regretting it now as he clung to the back of the pilots chair trying not to fall over with the horrible jerky movements. He hated being a passenger in most spacecraft but being stuck with Lance at the helm was a special kind of agony. His previous good humour very rapidly turned sour as Lance didn’t land immediately when they neared the planet’s surface; instead he flew in sweeping arcs several miles up, confirming with his own eyes that there were no signs of Galra presence. It was definitely the sensible thing to do, they had all learned to take Coran’s information with a pinch of scepticism, having been caught out one too many times now on supposedly ‘free’ planets, but Keith couldn’t see the surface very well from his position clinging to the back of the pilot’s chair and he was getting pretty sick of being thrown around in the turbulence of Lance’s steering._

_“Can you see anything? Because if not just hurry up and land already, you are without a doubt the worst pilot I’ve ever heard of” he snapped._

_“Ah but you have heard of me…” Lance murmured, thoroughly enjoying himself._

_“What?” Keith bit out._

_“Dude, seriously?” Lance whipped around to stare at Keith incredulously. “Pirates? Jack Sparrow? Holy Quiznak you’ve really lived a deprived life, it’s like, do we even actually come from the same planet?”_

_“Oh my God Lance, watch where you’re going!” Keith almost lost his footing as the Lion tilted with the angle of Lance’s turned body.  “Would you just freaking land already?!”_

_“Alright, alright! Jeez you’re so annoying…” Lance trailed off and Keith only caught a few mumbled words, but he knew it was most likely insults and curses. Lance fiddled with the controls and pushed the thrusters forward suddenly tilting Blue into a reckless dive._

_“Ok, you asked for it! We’re goin’ down!” said Lance, then added in a sort of sing-song “I’m yellin’ timberrrrr...”_

_Keith assumed it was another reference to something stupid that he didn’t get, and wouldn’t ever get the chance to hear about because Lance was about to kill them both in a head on collision._

_“God damn it Lance!” Keith braced himself and shut his eyes as they hurtled for the ground._

_He clung tightly to the chair as Lance whooped and they crashed through a thick canopy of branches before Lance slowed just in time to stick the landing in about four feet of mud. Keith jolted forward and his face mashed into the back of the chair._

_Lance was laughing slightly drunkenly as his adrenaline ebbed and Keith slowly stood up, glaring daggers and rubbing his squashed nose. “You freaking lunatic were you trying to kill me?! Passengers in the Lions don’t get seatbelts Lance! Jesus, and you thought you could be Captain America, well let me tell you that was straight up Iron Man you dumb, selfish asshole. Holy Quiznak I’m done. This is the last time I ever get in a ship with you, that was terrible. I can’t believe they actually made you fighter class! You couldn’t even be a proper cargo pilot, all your cargo would be broken by your awful piloting before you even landed…”_

_Lance became uncharacteristically quiet as Keith kept ranting his adrenaline out, waiting for Lance to catch up and defend himself, fling back some ridiculous insult about Keith’s hair. But he never did. Keith just kept saying more and more unforgiveable things until his brain finally caught on to the quiet and he managed to rant himself out._

_Keith panted into the silence._

_He knew he had gone too far this time, but damn if his heart wasn’t still racing and he was so done with this whole expedition and he just- he_ really _hated being a passenger ok? It put him on edge and made him feel helpless and he really wasn’t good with that._

_Lance’s expression was unreadable and only closed off further when Keith took a hesitant step towards him. Keith stopped awkwardly, unsure of what he was supposed to do to fix this._

_Lance turned and looked out the Blue Lions eye screen._

_“Sorry Keith” he said eventually, breaking the tense silence. “Guess I wasn’t thinking ‘bout you as a passenger, got used to racing with you I guess… I thought you’d appreciate… well no, I didn’t think… But I was never going to crash you know, I had it under control. Thought you knew that… You know, me and Blue, we’re good now. At least, I… I thought we were…”_

_And Keith knew then that he’d really, really messed up. They didn’t apologise to each other for their fights, not like that… To have gotten such a sincere apology out of Lance, he had said something seriously wrong. And he’d made Lance doubt himself. Damn it! Of course he had noticed how hard Lance had been training, how much he had improved as a pilot, God he hadn’t actually meant any of that, surely Lance understood…_

_He heaved a sigh. “Wait Lance, that’s not—“_

_“Hey don’t worry about it.” Lance had a weird fake smile on his face when he turned back. Keith didn’t like it. “Look, I’ll go down myself to drop this probe, only one of us has to get covered in mud and uh, I’ll try and be more careful where I land for the next one…”_

_He got up and went over to the lock box at the back of the cockpit._

_“What? Lance-“ Keith followed him. “I’m not worried about some mud, I can go! Or why don’t you just fly on to somewhere else to drop this one? It doesn’t have to be here.”_

_But Lance had already grabbed a probe and headed for the exit hatch. Keith snarled in frustration and went to follow him before he was stopped by Lance’s next words._

_“No, dude, I got this, seriously you don’t have to come down, just stay here.” Lance wouldn’t look at him._

_God damn it. Why was he being so stubborn? Keith cringed internally. He was going to have to do it… He was actually going to have to say the words… He sighed._

_“Look, Lance, I didn’t actually mean any of that ok? You know that right?” He said. It was a pretty piss poor apology, he knew that, but it was the thought that counted, right? “I don’t really think that…”_

_Lance stopped but didn’t turn around._

_“Yeah Keith, I know…” he sighed, “whatever, right? But look, could you just… I just need a minute ok?”_

_And he dropped out of the hatch, suit thrusters already whirring to slow his descent. Keith just stared at the blank space as the hatch slowly closed. He could still hear Lance breathing through the comms that linked their helmets, so at least he hadn’t turned that off and shut him out completely, but still…_

_He’d definitely screwed that up._

 

Shiro eventually found Keith in the corridor. The ship had rotated at some point and the younger paladin was now staring out at the view of the unfamiliar planet they were orbiting, looking lost and miserable. Shiro approached him from the side instead of behind, not wanting to sneak up on him before laying a careful hand on his shoulder.

He turned his attention to stare out the window like Keith and just waited, letting Keith gather his thoughts. He was practically vibrating with tension under Shiro’s hand, coiling tighter and tighter until eventually he had to break the silence like Shiro knew he would.

“We took too long Shiro,” he finally said. “God you should have seen him when we found him, the place they were keeping him… and I don’t even want to know what he’s been through, I just can’t, I know I should, I mean hell, if he lived it, and I caused it, I should at least be able to hear about it, but damn it I’ve never seen him so scared Shiro he was terrified, he was so desperate-“

“You can’t keep blaming yourself Keith,” Shiro interrupted him gently. “And I’m going to keep saying this until you believe it but this was Not. Your. Fault.”

“But I was the one there with him Shiro, I was the one who didn’t do anything when they dragged him away! Hell, I was the one who broke protocol and let him go out there alone in the first place, so that’s definitely on me and- I mean shit, you saw him back there. He’s terrified of me now. How am I ever going to make it up to him when he can’t even stand being near me? How are we ever going to form Voltron like this?! Oh my God, I haven’t just ruined Lance, I’ve doomed the whole freaking universe!”

“That’s enough Keith,” Shiro cut him off firmly. He turned Keith to face him, holding him braced with a hand on either shoulder. He ducked his head trying to force Keith to meet his eye, to make sure Keith really heard what he was saying.

“Keith, none of what happened was your fault. You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen, and it wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t help him. We’ve changed the Lions programming now so it won’t happen again. It was an awful situation and I’m sorry you had to be the one there watching it when you couldn’t do anything to help. But remember that’s _couldn’t_ do anything, not _didn’t._ There is a difference. And hell if it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine and Coran’s for putting you on that planet in the first place with bad intel. Ok Keith? So you have to stop blaming yourself. Especially now that Lance is back. I mean, did you even stop to think at all before you just ran off on him there? Can you think how that looked to Lance? He’s only just got back, only just found safety and already you’re rejecting him. Whatever he’s been through, you know Lance, he’ll be feeling self-conscious and embarrassed enough already that we all saw him like that. He needs your support now, not your guilt. He’s scared of all of us, and we need to make him feel safe now, show him we trust him and need him, that he’s still a part of Voltron. Running away from him now is only going to hurt him. So you need to get a handle on this, ok Keith? I mean… I don’t want to brush aside your feelings or what you’ve gone through this past month, I know it sucks for you right now too. But you can’t just run out like that again. Not on Lance.” Shiro finally stopped and they both just took a moment to reflect.

Keith had honestly never felt worse in his life. God he was such an idiot, being rash and not thinking of Lance’s feelings is what got them all here in the first place, and he had vowed that if they got Lance back he’d never do it again. And here he was, not one hour after getting Lance home, and he’d already betrayed that. He really was the worst. He didn’t deserve Lance’s forgiveness. And he had disappointed Shiro. He hated that. And Shiro was watching him now expectantly. He should probably say something…

He took a deep breath. “Sorry, Shiro. I won’t—it won’t happen again, I’ll apologise and explain. I’ll even do it properly this time— I mean, I’ll try anyway…”  He looked up and somehow it seemed like he hadn’t said the right thing at all. Shiro looked even more tired and upset than before. And old.

He mustered up a soft smile for Keith eventually though.

“I’m sorry too Keith, I didn’t mean for that to turn into a lecture. I’m just trying to look out for all of you, I just… I just want you to be ok…” Shiro said.

Keith bumped him with his shoulder and Shiro leaned back against him, his arm coming up to rest over his shoulders.

They stayed like that for some time, resting against each other and taking some small comfort from the contact as they watched the view change back again from the planet to the stars as the ship slowly rotated.

 

_Lance had been gone for about five minutes and Keith had settled into the pilot’s chair to wait, watching the Blue paladin through the Lion’s eye screens. He hadn’t gone far, just climbed a small bank up ahead and starting digging in the mud to seat the probe properly. Keith was a little amazed at just how filthy he had managed to get._

_Suddenly Keith heard a sharp intake of breath through the comms and saw Lance’s hand slap at his neck. Great, now space alien mosquitoes would probably give him some insane space alien disease or something, Lance had pretty much the worst luck out of anyone he’d ever met._

_Lance seemed to have frozen with his hand on his neck before he very slowly and carefully pulled something out and looked down._

_“Shit.”_

_Keith felt his heart rate pick up at that one word._

_“What?”_

_Lance wasn’t replying, just staring at the thing in his hand._

_“Lance, what is it?”_

_Lance stood up very slowly and started back down the little hill. After about four steps his knees buckled and he face planted into the mud._

_“Shit! Lance, what’s wrong? Talk to me man!” Keith was starting to panic. He switched his comms to talk back to the Castle. “Guys, something’s wrong, send in back up NOW.”_

_No one answered, the line just giving him static._

_“Guys?! Shiro, Allura, come in, can you hear me?!”_

_Just static._

_“Oh shit.”_

_Keith straightened in the chair and grabbed at the Blue Lion’s controls. But the second he did, everything in the cockpit blared with alarms, screens went dark, red lights flashed blindingly from every direction and the Blue Lion froze up._

_“What the hell?!” Keith yelled. “Blue! Blue it’s just me, it’s Keith! We have to get to Lance, come on, you have to move!”_

_But the alarms just kept shrieking and Blue wasn’t moving. She was frozen in the half crouch she had been ready to spring forward from a second ago, why wasn’t she following through with that?!_

_“Blue! What are you doing?! We have to get to Lance! LANCE! YOUR PALADIN?! What’s wrong with you dammit he’s in trouble!” Keith was up out of the chair now, the eye screens which he’d been following Lance in showed nothing._

_The Blue Lion roared and Keith was getting scared. He could feel her frustration and anger in that terrible sound and it was aimed at him._

_“What-”_

_“Keith?” Lance’s voice cut through his mounting panic and he latched onto it gratefully._

_“Lance? Thank God, what happened? Are you ok?”_

_“Sss’not freee” Lance’s voice was slurred._

_Well that was not good._

_Keith stumbled through the darkness and red flashing lights to the exit hatch and realised it wouldn’t open for him._

_“Lance get the Blue Lion to open the hatch! LANCE?!”_

_“Sss a dart… Prolly not goo…”_

_“Shit, oh shit, Blue?! BLUE YOU NEED TO OPEN THIS HATCH FOR ME! BLUE?!” Keith was definitely panicking now, and Lance’s increasingly incoherent slurring was not helping._

_“Kei… Kei-t… par-knn break on?... Kei?... Hep Bue…”_

_The Blue Lion was still roaring, increasingly desperately, but still she wasn’t budging. The alarms were too loud and the lights were disorienting, and Keith needed to get out and get to Lance, RIGHT NOW. He reached for the emergency release bar. It reminded him of the big levers that armed the doors of old aeroplanes._

_“Kei... Don come ou… Sss no goo… Hep Bue… youu mae her… stuuc…”_

_Keith had no idea what Lance was saying so he ignored it, concentrating instead on the lever. He heaved at it, internally begging it to just_ move damn it _but it was designed to be used only in extreme emergencies, which basically meant only when the Lion was offline. And the Blue Lion was definitely still online, just somehow… not working properly. He switched on the thrusters in the arms of his suit and heaved again._

_Slowly, so slowly, the lever started to give._

_“No Kei, don break Bue… ….. Ssshee don like… …. ….. ….don come ou… ………. ……..Cap …Ion man …………..”_

_Lance’s words were getting alarmingly quiet and further apart._

_“Lance don’t you dare, I’m almost out!”_

_The Blue Lion’s next roar drowned out his words and he cringed at the volume and the anguish in the sound._

_Through the ringing in his ears, only Lance’s shallow breathing answered him as the lever finally gave and the hatch popped open. He jumped straight down, trusting his thrusters to catch him and using them to propel him forward as he went. As he felt the air rush past him he saw the Blue Glow and felt his heart sink._

No. No way.

_He hit the ground running and his fears were confirmed. Blue’s shield was up._

_WHY THE HELL WAS THE SHEILD UP?!_

_He ran towards it. He wasn’t sure if it was just his panic skewing his perspective, but this was the furthest he had seen one of the Lion’s barriers reach. When he finally reached its edge he threw himself against it desperately pushing to break through. Unfortunately, just like every other particle barrier he had ever encountered, it was entirely invulnerable to keiths. He couldn’t pass through it. Smushed up against it, he peered through the glow and saw Lance lying prone not fifteen feet from him._

_What the hell, this was so unfair._

_“LANCE? LANCE?! YOU NEED TO GET UP!! LANCE?!” he shouted desperately. All Lance had to do was crawl that last fifteen feet to safety. But Keith couldn’t reach him._

_“SHIRO?! ALLURA?! CORAN!?! ANYONE PLEASE I NEED BACK UP IMMEDIATELY!”_

_He had never felt more helpless as he slid to his knees, banging his fists against the barrier in a futile attempt to break through._

_“BLUE YOU DUMB LION PUT DOWN THE SHIELD!! THAT’S_ YOUR PALADIN _OUT THERE! PLEASE HE’S RIGHT THERE JUST PUT IT DOWN FOR LIKE THREE SECONDS?!!”_

_Face still pressed to the barrier, he couldn’t take his eyes off Lance. He was unnaturally still, lying on his side, totally unprotected in the mud. As he watched, movement appeared in the trees behind Lance and two Galran drone soldiers stepped out._

No no no no no no no. _He had to stop this, there had to be something he could do, he just had to_ think. THINK KEITH DAMN YOU.

_He got to his feet again and renewed his attack on the barrier, throwing everything he had into pushing, beating against it. “DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM” he screamed. “GET BACK! I’LL KILL YOU! NO! LANCE?!_ LANCE?!”

_The drones ignored him and set about tying Lance’s hands and feet, before calmly taking an end each and hoisting him up between them like a human shopping bag. Keith could do nothing but scream profanity and rail against the particle barrier as they marched away._

_Lance swayed limply between them. His head lolled back grotesquely, and his eyes were open. Keith felt the crushing weight of blame stare back at him when he met that blank, empty gaze. He felt it long after they disappeared from his view, and he felt it when the other paladins finally found him._

A whole month later, he felt it still.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Keith.... and also poor Lance lol
> 
> So season 3 somewhat jossed everyone's backstories and histories and I have no fix for that, I just prefer my headcanons, I hope you guys don't mind... :) but the thing with Keith being unable to pilot Blue has an explanation I think fits in ok with canon... stay tuned!
> 
> Next up, we'll check back in with Lance... he got pretty lucky with figuring out what was real and reconnecting with the team before... but it's going to be a looong road to recovery for him... :D
> 
> Please comment or kudos if you enjoyed this, and thanks so much to everyone who has already done so! Your support means a lot to me :)
> 
> EDIT: Does anyone know why the end notes from the first chapter keep showing up again as a second note on my other chapters? I can't see an option to un-check about the first chapters notes appearing on every chapter...?


	4. The Re-awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for such a kind response to this fic, I'm so grateful for all the feedback, your comments and kudos give me life!
> 
> I'm not sure what I need to tag/warn about in this chapter, there's nothing I consider particularly graphic, but my tolerance may be higher than other peoples? So, I'd just like make sure you all know, this fic deals with the aftermath of torture, both physical and psychological, and this chapter will be touching on some of the resulting effects and PTSD symptoms of that, and there are some descriptions of injuries ... So if that's something you might find difficult to deal with, please read with caution! And of course, please let me know if there is something more specific I should be tagging or warning for. Thanks!

 

 

_The endless clanking of metallic boots echoes around him as he floats through malicious purple._

_The clouds roll over him so thick he can’t see, he’s lost._

_A pinch in his neck. The food, bitter aniseed. The drink, copper tang… blood._

_He can’t resist, he chokes, he burns._

_He watched them. He chose them. He murdered them._

_He tries to flee, he hurts. They hurt._

_The lightening stabbed through his skull._

_He will see what they make him see._

_And above it all the witch’s voice, “You will break them. And it will break you.”_

_“We will break you.”_

_He breaks._

Lance lurched back towards consciousness, clammy with cold sweat and heart thundering in his ears. Vague afterimages of blood and fog swirled at the edges of his mind and he cringed back from them. He’d rather forget.

“Lance, are you awake?”

The voice was familiar and kind so immediately he knew not to trust it. He was plenty familiar with this game by now, and knew intimately the kind of pain he was in for. It would happen whether he played along with the illusions or not. The only thing he could do was try to present a smaller target (though his restraints usually prevented him from doing much more than hunching his neck and shoulders forward ineffectually).

He was shocked and disoriented when he discovered that he was lying down on his side this time, arms already tucked in close to his chest, and he was able to draw his knees up fully into a protective foetal position. The accustomed weight of his chains was missing and his wrists felt strangely light and exposed without them. The room was pleasantly warm which was odd, and his muscles weren’t protesting like they usually were, under the prolonged strain of his confinement. His hands were now confined though, bound in what felt like warm, squishy mittens; but the perpetual ache of them was soothed too.

What the hell was going on? Why was it different? What fresh hell were they cooking up for him to endure this time?

A strange emptiness pulsed and burned up inside him. Somewhere deep in his soul, something was missing-twisted- _broken._

“It’s alright Lance, you’re safe now.”

That voice was trying to rouse him again, stirring up memories and spinning through his head with a vague feeling of safety that he just couldn’t bring himself to trust.

Wait, was that the Castle of Lions he remembered?... Was that real?... No, it couldn’t be… right?

Although…

His thoughts weren’t all slow and mushy like they should have been; he didn’t have to fight through that thick blanket of fog just to _think…_ Ok, so the poison must be wearing off… but then why hadn’t they forced the next dose into him like usual? Why were they letting him get away with not having eaten it, he should have been punished by now…

“I’m still here Lance, it’s just Coran, you’re in the Infirmary on the Castle of Lions now, remember?”

Coran, that’s right! He had been there and he had definitely been real, Lance had felt him. The memory surfaced again and it didn’t have that weird dream-like quality that they sometimes got when the drugs were starting to loosen their hold on his mind and he could remember just for a tic that it hadn’t really been Pidge screaming for him to stop, he hadn’t really just watched them carve Hunk apart, none of it had been real, it was all too fuzzy and muted… No, it wasn’t like that this time.  This memory was sharp. Coran was focussed and bright and _real…_

At least… Probably?

He decided it was worth the risk and quickly peeked one eye open just to check.

“GAH!”

His field of view was entirely taken up by bushy, ginger hair, right up close to his face and he scrambled back in surprise. Apparently his sudden shout must have surprised Coran too as the moustache quickly disappeared and when Lance opened his eyes fully again, he found that Coran had fallen over on the floor.

“Coran, what the quiznak?!” His heart was racing again, what the hell was the guy thinking, waking someone up like that, all up in their face?! That was terrifying!

Although, hang on a tic, then that meant; “Oh my God, Coran? It’s really you! You were actually real?!”

His fear flipped a fast one-eighty and he launched himself into the arms of the old Altean as he was trying to pick himself up off the floor, taking them both crashing back down.

“Oof! Well yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” said Coran, and Lance felt a somewhat manic laugh bubble up in his throat which quickly morphed into an uncontrollable sob. He buried his head into Coran’s jacket in a desperate attempt to smother it, but he was already being overwhelmed by a swiftly rising flood of emotion and he couldn’t stop the embarrassing mess of tears and snot. He gave in and just clung to Coran gratefully. It was such a relief at last, to let all of the pain and rage and fear come pouring out of him.

A warm hand came up and started stroking soothing circles on his back. “Shh, it’s alright, you’re ok now, paladin.” And Coran’s weirdly high-pitched, whiny voice was a much-missed melody in Lance’s ears.

They stayed like that for some time, each taking comfort in the return of the other, until Lance’s sobs eventually slowed down to snivels and Coran gently ushered him back up onto the bench. Lance felt drained and exhausted again, and he just let Coran do his thing, cautiously puttering around with various bits of medical equipment. It was actually surprisingly calming to let the familiar routine of a medical check-up wash over him, and Coran was always mindful to announce what he was doing and ask for permission before touching him which Lance appreciated. Honestly, the guy just had such a fantastic bedside manner, keeping up a cheerful stream of distracting chatter as he worked, and it was extraordinarily nice to feel so genuinely looked after and cared for again. It was so vastly different to the painful and humiliating treatment he had received at the hands of the Galra— he quickly stopped that train of thought before it could take him back to the dark places he didn’t want to remember, and tried to force his attention back on to Coran’s rambling.

“…but it had just been Coltaf all along! And they were all in on it mind you, but my goodness! You should have seen him! Oh, hold very still for a tic please, if you’ll allow me, I’m just going to peel the Detoxification Square off your neck. According to my scans it has finished working all of those nasty toxins out of you now.”

Lance nodded his consent but couldn’t stop the flinch as the fast ripping sensation on either side of his neck was accompanied by a brutally sharp sting. 

“But can you believe it though?! He’d shifted his frame an extra six vorgons as well as completely changed his hair to match, and he was only in his first Quintolian spiral! Ah, such skill that boy had!...”

Lance wasn’t sure what most of that meant, or even who Coltaf had been, but the way Coran’s eyes lit up when he talked about it helped to distract Lance from the pain and made him smile along too.

Until he happened to glance past Coran, and did a double take at the unexpected sight on the other side of the room.

Soft brown hair was matted through with blood. Heavy bandages covered the one arm he could see peeking out from under a thin hospital blanket. A terrible bloody mess of swelling and bruises marred their face, making the figure almost unrecognisable.

But Lance would recognise his best friend in any condition. And that was definitely Hunk.

Jesus, Mary and Quiznak _,_ what had happened to him?! How long had Lance been sleeping? In his most recent memories Hunk was completely fine; in fact Lance had been using him as a pillow, right? But how reliable was that memory now? Oh SHIT, did he do that?! ~~(again)~~   _He remembered the soft give of flesh under his hands, the sharp CRACK of bones in his ears, his friend was screaming, writhing, begging…._

“LANCE?”

Coran’s voice broke him out of the spiralling memories and brought him back to the present. He couldn’t look away from where his friend lay broken and silent on the other bench. His breaths came in heavy, erratic pants. 

“Wh-What happened to him Coran?” He whispered hoarsely. “Please tell me I didn’t… It wasn’t… Oh God, did I do that?” He remembered a skull, smashed against the floor like a melon… _His hands were covered in blood…_

“What?” Coran crouched before him and inadvertently blocked his view of Hunk. Lance just kept staring past him, through him. “Woah, hold on now Space Juice, stay with me here, what’s wrong?” A hand waved in front of his face but Lance didn’t blink, _couldn’t_ blink. Hunk was dying, probably because of him…

“Hunk…” He whispered, his voice broken.

“Hunk?...” Coran parroted, before seeming to realise the problem. “…Oh! Of course! He was here when you fell asleep and now he’s—Right! I mean, no! Oh I should have known you’d worry, I should have spoken up sooner! I’m sorry, but whatever you’re thinking, worry not! Hunk is perfectly safe, he’s just stepped out for a tic. He didn’t want to leave you but he said that the Mother of your Natures was calling to him—you Earthlings do have such unusual expressions for discussing your bodily functions—and he was intercepted by Shiro upon his return, who convinced him take some time out to look after himself while you were sleeping—we really weren’t expecting you to wake for some time yet—although I believe he rather missed the point of that instruction, for he is currently in the kitchen cooking up a feast in order to properly celebrate your successful rescue and return to the castle!”

Lance blinked slowly as Coran’s frantic barrage of words filtered through his panic in a confusing jumble. It just didn’t make any sense though, no matter how he tried to interpret it… He tried to stand up, shaking his head.

“No Coran—“ he pushed weakly at Coran until he moved out of the way “- you don’t understand…” he trailed off.

There was no one on the bench behind Coran.

But that didn’t make any sense either, he had just seen Hunk there and he was in no condition to get up… And where had all the blood gone? There had been so much of it…

He sank back down on the bench.

“Are you alright Lance?” Coran asked.

Lance shook his head again in confusion. “Yeah, I... Yeah? I just… I dunno, I saw…” What? His best friend broken and dying on that bench there? Because of _him_? No, he couldn’t say that. He didn’t want to tell the team about any of that, he couldn’t tell them what he’d done, what they’d made him do. They’d never trust him again…

He realised that what he’d just seen must have been _not real_. It must have just been some remnant of all the poison and drugs they’d forced on him… _yeah, that must be it…_ Something shifted disconcertingly in the back of his mind, shuffling his thoughts around until he felt that awful itch, like he was forgetting something important and it was just out of his reach…

That empty place within him burned colder.

“What did you see Lance?” Coran interrupted him, looking slightly alarmed now.

Shit, he needed to stop freaking out, he was fine, everything was fine, nothing was real, _quick, say something…_ “N-nothing! Sorry, I mean, it was nothing really? D-don’t worry about me, I know what’s real!”  His voice cracked towards the end and he hunched his shoulders, rubbing the back of his neck. _God damn it, he needed to calm down, that wasn’t convincing at all…_

Coran’s sceptical eye seemed to agree. A dubious hmmm-ing noise emerged from the back of his throat.

“Mmm, well look now Lance, I’m not here to ask you to talk about what you’ve been through-- you’ll get enough of that from Allura and Shiro in the debriefing later—although I do hope you know that I’m always here for you if you _would_ like to talk about that, I really am quite an excellent listener you know—my ears were famous back on Altea in fact! ‘Coran the Great Listener’ they called me—aah, but anyway, it won’t help for you to hide any ongoing pain or injuries from me in the meantime. Now, none of my scans and tests so far have flagged anything outside of your usual bio-rhythms, but if there could still be something wrong, if you even _suspect_ you might have some subtle injury leftover from your captivity, I need you to tell me about it, ok? Because I’d really like to help you get back on your feet my lad, but I can only do that if you’ll let me. Please don’t hide your pain from me now, Lance.” Coran’s words were totally reasonable and sincere.

And they just made Lance feel like a complete idiot. Of course he couldn’t hide this from the team. If he was so unstable and crazy that he was hallucinating about them dying right in front of him, well, that was probably something they all deserved to know about…

Before he could reply though, something flickered in the corner of his eye and that uncomfortable feeling shifted once more in his head. His eyes inadvertently slid to the left and Hunk was suddenly there again, translucent and ghost-like.  There was blood streaming down his face like tears from gruesome, empty eye sockets. It dripped from his chin and stained his shirt with gore. It was a vision straight from Lance’s nightmares. Even without his eyes, Lance could feel a deep, frightening fury directed at him through Hunk’s gaze and he wanted to cringe away from it but he couldn’t move. The terrible spectre raised a finger to point at Lance and then slowly shook its head.

_No,_ whispered cold and icy through him, _he mustn’t tell them about this._

It didn’t sound like Hunk. It was an echo of pure terror. ~~( _“We will break you.”)_~~

_He mustn’t tell them…_

Ignoring the hot shame that erupted low in his gut, he tore his gaze away from the apparition and looked down instead at the thick bandages that covered his hands from fingertip to wrist. He took a deep breath and tried to gather his composure enough to ensure that when he answered Coran, he would pass as convincingly ‘fine’ and not ‘an obviously insane mess’. But looking down at himself just served to remind him how disgusting he was, still covered in the filth of his cell and the tattered remains of his prison garb. It completely derailed his thoughts.

The whole time he was captured, he had dreamed of being clean again, of scrubbing the grime from his skin and feeling the fresh bubbles of shampoo work the grease from his hair. He had longed for the luxury and comfort of his facial cleansers and moisturisers, _anything_ to help make him feel human again and less like the dirty, feral animal he was becoming…

And as soon as he realised he could probably actually have those things now, suddenly he couldn’t think of anything else. He _needed_ to be clean again.

Gasping softly, he looked back up at Coran and couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice. “Coran, can I take a shower?”

He ignored the flash of disappointment behind Coran’s eyes as he obviously dodged the conversation the old Altean was trying to start, but he would just have to deal with that later, an almost manic energy had filled him now at the idea of being _clean_ again and he needed it so badly, he couldn’t bear the dirt any longer.

“ _Please,_ Coran?”

He had gotten very good at begging.

Coran’s eyes immediately softened in sympathy and Lance silently thanked all the space gods when he nodded, letting his previous concerns be dropped for now.

“Alright then Lance, well like I said, I’m here if you need me… Just let me get those bandages off your hands and you can use the wash room we have just down the corridor, our old ointment should have worked its magic by now,” he said.

Lance nodded impatiently and held out his arms.

“Allura found it for you, did you know? It should help to lessen some of the sensitivity and discomfit in the scarring you have,” he continued.

A surprising jolt of fear shot up Lance’s spine at the mention of Allura having any involvement with his injuries and dread settled heavily in his stomach. It wasn’t right somehow but the feeling was instinctive, he couldn’t help it, he was scared… What the hell was wrong with him?

He fought to keep his eyes from slipping over to the haunting image of his friend, still flickering by his side. His leg bounced with agitation against the bench.

_NO, stop it,_ he really didn’t want to think about this right now, he just wanted to be _clean. Please just let him have this one thing…_

Coran was still talking as he started to unwrap the bandages carefully.

“You might find that the discomfort comes back after a few vargas, but if you’ll allow me to reapply these before you take each allocated resting period, I believe we will start to see a marked improvement in no time.”

The mangled flesh of Lance’s hands was slowly revealed, and while Lance had thought he was ready to see the horrific scarring again, his vision immediately started tunnelling when he caught his first glimpse of the damage. He’d only ever really examined them from the distance of his full arm’s length, hung high in chains in the dim half-shadows of his prison cell and it had not prepared him at all to see them now, under the harsh clinical lights of the Infirmary, where he couldn’t hide from the facts anymore; his hands were _completely ruined_. They were beyond disfigured, they were _disgusting_. Thick ropey scars twisted over themselves before dropping away into shiny red craters of puckered flesh, sprawling out across his hands to mark a topographical map of his suffering. The picture wasn’t helped by the thick spread of ointment which looked unfortunately similar to pus oozing over the wounds. The strong herbal smell quickly morphed in his nostrils, into something sickeningly reminiscent of meat being cooked.  

He couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears. The smell was over powering. His hands were wrecked, it was all he could see.

The memories surged forward, unexpectedly aggressive, and he was powerless when they transported him back…

 

_He was groggy and unfocussed from the latest concoction they had forced into him. His recent escape attempt had failed spectacularly when he couldn’t find Keith anywhere, and they had been very diligent with their poisoning schedule since then. Everything still hurt with a mildly dull ache, but he couldn’t really remember what his punishment had been, and while it itched at him not to know, he had a feeling he should probably be grateful for the amnesia this time..._

_The door to his cell burst open suddenly and he jumped when Shiro came barrelling in, quickly freeing him from his chains and hustling him out. Something didn’t feel right, but Shiro was yelling at him, they needed to get moving. He was floating after his leader through several anxious corridors, and suddenly he found himself back in the cockpit of the Blue Lion. It was weird and disorienting, and he couldn’t feel the usual warmth in the back of his mind that was his connection to Blue. He tried to ask the older paladin about Keith (they couldn’t leave without him!)  but Shiro was yelling urgently over him, he needed to fly them out of here…_

_The second his hands closed around the control sticks, small pulses of electricity seized up his muscles and he couldn’t pull away. The metal became fire under his fingers and he screamed as it started cooking his flesh. Allura’s face appeared on his dashboard screens. “The Blue Lion has rejected you” she told him calmly. He couldn’t feel his connection to Blue. “You are no pilot. You are unskilled and unworthy. You are the reason they will all be killed.” Shiro moved in front of him, yelling something he couldn’t hear over the agony in his hands and Allura’s voice in his ear. Two blasts hit Shiro in the chest and he fell back against the control panel smoking and bleeding heavily. Lance screamed again but it was too late. Shiro was killed right in front of him. Lance couldn’t move._

_“The Blue Lion has judged you unworthy but it will not let you go until you accept how truly inadequate you are. How useless.” His hands were burning; the flesh of his palms and fingers, cooking. He was surrounded by the disturbing smell of barbequed pork. “Give up now paladin. You are unworthy. You will never fly again.” He couldn’t get any response from Blue, his bond with her was burning too. The pain was unbearable. “You have killed your leader, and you have doomed Voltron with your failure. You are not welcome back in the Castle of Lions.” The pain was searing up his arms, his muscles were locked, he could not escape it. He could only scream. “Accept it Lance, and let your hands be a permanent reminder of your failure. You are not good enough, you have never been good enough, and now you have cost us everything.”—_

“LANCE!”

 

He came back to the present with Coran’s frantic face blocking the view of his hands and he had never been more grateful to see that beautiful ginger hair up so close to his face. He was shaking like a leaf and black spots danced in the edges of his vision. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

“Woah there Number Three, slow down a tic and just breathe with me now.” Coran’s hand covered Lance’s and pressed it firmly against his chest. Lance could feel the deep even breaths the Altean was taking and tried to concentrate on matching him.

“That’s it Lance, nice and easy, in for eight” he breathed, “and hold for four” he breathed, “now out for twelve…” He could breathe.

The solid touch of Coran helped to ground him and slowly, slowly Lance got himself under control again, relaxing at last as his adrenaline ebbed away. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool, his thoughts coming thick and slow again, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind too much. The fog was more like a fuzzy blanket this time, protecting him from the violent surges of his memory.

It was fine, he wasn’t there anymore, he was safe now, with Coran back aboard the Castle of Lions and this, here and now, this was what was real. He should just forget about what had happened, it wasn’t real, none of that was real, he was ok, it was ok now… (He tried to ignore the way his fingertips still tingled painfully with a phantom heat… _some of it had been_ _real…)_

But his breath wasn’t even close to matching Coran’s crazy slow counting and the old Altean was clearly still very concerned about that.

“Come on now Lance, you really need to slow down, open that airway now, use your spinurghlafre,” he coached.

Lance obediently took a few more deep breaths and waited for the whirlwind of his emotions to stop spinning. God, he’d only been awake for… what, an hour? And it was already so apparent to him that he was _not ok,_ he couldn’t even have something nice and simple like a shower without a freaking meltdown, what was everyone going to think? How could he possibly keep this shit from them?

Taking another deep breath, he tried desperately not to look back at the Hunk-ghost (because, yup, that was still a thing). He seriously needed to pull it together. He’d never live down the shame of anyone finding out about what he’d just remembered… They must never know about what had happened to him.

His head pulsed with the all-consuming thought, _he mustn’t tell them…_

Well, a good defence started with a good offence, right?  Was that a saying? Whatever, maybe he could just deflect and redirect Coran’s attention with his tried and trusted method of being his most obnoxious self, and they could just move on like nothing even happened?

He took one last steadying breath.

“Sorry, I-I think I’m ok now Coran… thanks … but, I don’t think humans have a spuh-nerr-ggl-flerr?” He totally mangled the word. Nothing was more obnoxious and frustrating than someone severely mispronouncing words from your native tongue, in Lance’s opinion. “What is a spri-nugle-flow?” He couldn’t help a small inward smile as Coran actually winced at that pronunciation. “Sorry, the Spring-gumble-flag?”

“The _spinurghlafre_ ,” Coran jumped in quickly before he could butcher the Altean language any further, “—is an important organ in the throat which helps one to control their intake of various gasses, as they are needed by the body in order to function correctly. My mistake though, it’s so easy to forget that you belong to such a young, unevolved species… I mean, my goodness, no spinurghlafre? It’s a miracle you can get around so well with such primitive respiration…”

Lance let out a shaky laugh when Coran followed this comment up with a wink. He was grateful that Coran was playing along and allowing the distraction, but then again, the guy was super weird and hard to read ( _especially_ when he tried to use human gestures to communicate; he very rarely used them correctly). Perhaps Lance should actually be a lot more concerned that he didn’t have a spinurgle-whatever-thing…

He quickly sobered as the cold emptiness seemed to echo inside him at the thought. _Something missing…_

Unfortunately Coran noticed the subtle change of his expression and the brief light hearted moment was lost.

“Ah, young paladin… now I know I said I wouldn’t press you before, but I don’t think I can let you leave the Infirmary in good conscience now without talking about what just happened here…”

Lance sighed. _Damn it._ So he wasn’t going to get out of it that easily then… He would just have to tell Coran the very tiniest possible amount of something vague but important-sounding, and hopefully that would assuage his concerns enough for him to drop it. That would be ok, right?

He shifted uncomfortably and looked away from both Coran and his hands. He felt the familiar curls of discomfort unfurl in his stomach and resigned himself to having the conversation.

When he finally spoke again, he could only bring himself to address the wall.

“It was just a really uh… vivid memory, I guess?... Of when… ah…” He gestured clumsily with his hands. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Just caught me off guard… Probably like a… I dunno, maybe PTSD thing or something…”

“PTSD? What’s—oh! That is the neurological ailment you all believe Shiro to be suffering with, correct?”

Lance winced. Damn it, he’d already said too much.

“Uh, yeah, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—look can we not mention this to the others? It’s really not that big of a deal. Actually I’m pretty sure it’s a totally normal reaction after… you know… that kind of stuff _…_ happens…  and I don’t wanna get in the way and mess with how Shiro’s doing, like he properly has it, you know? I mean, he’s obviously got it so much worse, he’s got like a whole year’s worth of shit to work through and I’ve only got…” He trailed off when he suddenly realised that he actually had no idea how long he’d been captured for. It felt like forever. Maybe it had been an entire year for him too…

“You’ve been missing for approximately one of your Earth-months, Lance,” said Coran.

Oh, or not… only a month huh?… Well it had certainly felt like a lot longer than that…

“R-right, well a month then… yeah, so that’s like… what, a twelfth? of what Shiro has been through, and he’s mostly fine, so you know I’m just saying, don’t worry ‘bout me ‘cause like… I’m fine?” _Crap, that wasn’t supposed to be a question…_

“Oh Lance, no, these things are not a competition,” Coran said, gently.

“Right, no, yeah, of course, I get that. But I’m telling you. I’m fine.” _Yes, a statement. Nailed it._

Lance didn’t mean to sound so defensive about it, but he was rapidly losing control of the conversation and it was putting him on edge.

(He tried not to hear the echo of that voice _~~hemustnottellthem~~ ~~WEWILLBREAKYOU~~ )._

He just wanted to have his shower and be clean and human again and then go to sleep and maybe when he woke up tomorrow he wouldn’t be so crazy. Why the hell couldn’t Coran just let this go and let him have that? He didn’t want them to know about it all, damn it!

“Ok Number Three,” Coran sounded very cautious. “I just thought maybe if you could tell me about your experience just now—I believe I have heard Shiro refer to it as Flashing Backs?— I could find some way to help with your first steps towards psychological recovery. I have helped Shiro in a similar fashion after a few of his episodes with the ailment, and I believe it to have had some beneficial effect on him. And I am perfectly capable of helping you without also negatively affecting him, so don’t worry yourself with that. And it might help you too, perhaps, to know that you don’t _have_ to be fine right now, Lance, no one expects you to be and no one will think any worse of you for it, I assure you.”

Lance wanted to growl, and snap and rage against the delicate tone Coran was using. Like he was some fragile thing that would fall apart again at any moment.

But he knew he kind of was.

He could feel how high his emotions were running right now, it wasn’t normal, how close he was to flying off the handle…

So he couldn’t really object to Coran’s tone...

Instead, with a monumental amount of effort, he forced himself to take a deep breath and just let it out again. God, he was so tired. And he so desperately _wanted_ to be fine, he just... He just wanted everything to go back to normal and maybe then he could try to forget his time as a Galran prisoner forever, and if he never had to think about it ever again, maybe he’d just learn to be fine with it all eventually and move on… Go back to being the happy-go-lucky Blue Paladin he’d been before, flying around in his giant magical robot lion and saving the universe…

He wanted that so badly…

_God, he was so tired._

But thinking of magical robot lions, now that he was back aboard the Castle, he should be able to feel his connection to Blue again. Holy Quiznak, how had he forgotten about that and not checked in with her yet?!

He reached instinctively for their bond in his mind, only to rear back when the dark, cold, empty place in him surged forward and blocked him from where that connection should be, pulsing, _burning,_ sharp with pain and fear and _nothing._

_Blue wasn’t there._

That terrible empty thing that he had been feeling, that creeping sense that something was _missing-twisted-BROKEN;_ it was his paladin bond! He hadn’t realised it ‘til now, because it was broken beyond anything recognisable—it was _mutilated._

Panic flared briefly in him again but he was too exhausted for it to be sustained, and it was quickly smothered by an overwhelming horror and a deep feeling of violation. Pain spread out from the burning empty space where his bond used to be, and the stinging heat of tears filmed over his eyes. His chest felt immeasurably heavy but the rest of his body was slowly turning numb. It was the worst kind of realisation, this final proof that nothing could ever go back to normal for him ever again, he was never going to be _fine_ now, they had deeply, fundamentally, irreparably _broken him._

He hung his head and let the despair fill him up like a rising tide.

_Unless…_

An intrusive thought niggled into his brain and sowed the first seed of doubt.

_It wasn’t real last time…_

The memory of being with Blue but missing that connection to her was still fresh in his mind. And he knew now that he hadn’t felt her then because it _wasn’t real._ He had still been a prisoner of the Galra, that’s why their connection was missing…

The seed took hold and its roots burrowed deeper into his thoughts.

_Was he really sure that this was actually real?_

He snapped his head back up and side-eyed Coran suspiciously. The nightmare vision of Hunk hovered over his shoulder.

_Which one was he supposed to believe?_

Coran was so solid though… So sharp and _real…_

So perhaps this all _was_ real then? But in that case his bond with Blue really was broken, and how could they have managed to destroy that so completely?

Was there any hope that the cold and empty hole they left in him could be repaired?...

Ice seeped into his heart.

Maybe it wasn’t the druids at all. Maybe Blue just didn’t want him anymore. Didn’t want a paladin who would betray his team like Lance had done. Maybe she really had rejected him.

He looked back down at his hands. The permanent reminder of his shame.

He clenched them into fists and watched the thick ointment ooze out between his fingers.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Was this just the next phase of the druid’s torment, and he was actually still their captive and none of this was real? Or had his team mates really risked their lives and got him back safely only to find out it was all for nothing because he was already so broken that the Blue Lion didn’t want him and he wasn’t even really a paladin at all anymore…

He startled when Coran shifted slightly close by, suddenly reminded that he still had an audience for this latest mental breakdown…

He needed to figure this out, fast.

But if this wasn’t real, he shouldn’t let them know that he’d figured it out. He needed to keep playing along and maybe he could find some way to use it to his advantage and escape…

And if it _was_ real, then he definitely shouldn’t let them know about these new doubts. They probably shouldn’t know about any of it really, they’d never trust him again… They’d figure some of it out eventually of course, particularly if Blue truly had rejected him; but maybe he’d jumped the gun there too and she was just injured or shut down or something and that was why he couldn’t feel her… Ok, so he needed more information before he told the others about that… Maybe he could sneak out to her hangar later and see for himself…

_Argh_ , but what if it _wasn’t_ real, and he should be concentrating on figuring out how to escape, not wasting time on fake Blue Lions!

He didn’t know what to do!

He needed more time to figure this out…

He needed somewhere with more privacy, and actually, the bathroom would be perfect for that! He was still filthy and gross and he still really wanted that shower, and if none of this was real, well who knew when he’d get another chance at that, he should take it now… And Coran shouldn’t find it too suspicious if he went there alone…

Ok, so he should play along for the moment and see how much freedom he was allowed… Would Coran let him shower alone?... Was he free to move about the castle as he wished?... He needed to test his position in this new situation, whatever reality it turned out to be… And if he just stayed alert enough, surely they’d drop their guard eventually and he’d figure this all out for himself and no one need be any the wiser…

Ok, he could do this…

He cleared his throat awkwardly and tried on his most winning smile. It didn’t quite fit on his face like it used to, but he hoped it was close enough.

“I will let you know if anything comes up Coran, but for now I would really just like to take that shower,” he said. _Totally nailed it._

He waited with baited breath to see what move Coran would make…

Coran’s eyes searched him, like he could tell there was something more than just PTSD flashbacks going on in his head now but he seemed hesitant to voice any suspicions just yet.

“Well alright then, Number Three,” he said reluctantly. He helped Lance to his feet and held him steady as he quickly found his balance.

Inside, Lance was celebrating. This was a very small victory, yes, but it was the first win he’d had in such a long time… He just couldn’t let Coran know what he was thinking… He tried to fix his face to a more neutral expression.

Coran continued to watch him uncomfortably closely, but his voice and posture were casual and relaxed.

“Everything you need should already be in the wash room, including a set of your casual clothing items which Shiro seemed to think you would prefer over the more comfortable healing robe that I recommended. Of course, I won’t be offended if you agree with Shiro’s prediction, but I just think you should know that the option is there for you to wear a superior Altean fabric, specifically designed to provide you with a maximum level of comfort during your convalescence, if you so wish. It has been the number one garment used to aid in recovery for over ten thousand years now after all!” He winked again and then pulled away when Lance abruptly shrugged him off and insisted on leaving the Infirmary under his own steam. Coran was pleasantly surprised that the boy was strong enough to do so.

He was left staring after Lance with racing thoughts.

He had tried not to let his worry show through in their interactions just now, but there really were a lot of worrying new developments to worry about. Almost everything Lance had said and done had set off huge red flags for Coran about Lance’s mental state and he was deeply concerned that the road to recovery for Lance was going to be far longer and have more difficulties than any of them could anticipate.

He hadn’t missed the way Lance’s eyes kept darting to watch something that wasn’t there. He’d noticed the unstable way Lance’s thoughts and emotions flitted about erratically and seemed to catch him off guard. He’d seen through all the ways that Lance had managed to avoid talking about his experiences, even after the PTSD Flashing Back, and he hated himself a little bit for having let them all slide. It would only get harder the longer he let it go, but he hadn’t wanted to push too much too soon… It was such a delicate balancing act to aid in the healing of a mind…

Most concerning of all was the flash of distrust Coran was sure he’d seen in Lance’s eye right at the end there… He’d become even more closed off and Coran wasn’t sure that he’d made the right choice in letting the kid go, he didn’t want those suspicious feelings to be allowed to fester and grow any more… That was certainly a pressing issue he would be keeping a very close eye on and trying to nip in the bud if he could…

But despite all his worries, Coran was confident that they would eventually have Lance back to some semblance of his old self and firing on all cylinders again. Lance was the Blue Paladin after all; he was adaptability personified. He would learn to live with the memory of his experiences and roll with the punches of his journey to recovery. And with the rest of Voltron, plus the princess and himself there to offer support, there was no way that Lance could fall.

He nodded to himself and set about tidying up the Infirmary with both ears alert for any sound of distress from the wash room. Once he was certain that Lance would be ok, he would have to go and find Allura and Shiro and warn them about all these worrying new developments before they tried to debrief Lance tomorrow…  Because Quiznak knew, without his help, that was a conversation doomed to disaster…

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading and please let me know what you think with a comment or kudos!
> 
> And I hate to be that guy, but just a heads up, updates will probably be a bit slower from here on out, I'm really sorry, but I'll try my best!


	5. The Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about the extensive delay in getting this chapter out, and unfortunately it's much shorter than I'd intended... It's really only the first section of a chatper, but I keep re-reading and nit picking at it, and I just need to get it posted and move on now lol
> 
> That said, thank you all so so much for the comments and kudos and support for this fic! It really makes my day to hear that people are enjoying my writing :) I hope you all enjoy this next chapter!

 

As soon as the door closed behind him, Lance slumped against it in relief. He took a moment to collect his breath and let his facade of strength fall away. Walking the short distance down the hallway should not have taken this much out of him, but at least no one else was here to witness how weak he really was. (The terrifying Hunk-hallucination had disappeared again somewhere in the corridor, and Lance was so grateful for the privacy, even from a figment of his own broken mind.)

His thoughts still raced though, almost faster than he could keep up with, chasing after his suspicions in frantic circles. _Was this even real?_ The cold fear that _he_ _didn’t know_ kept returning with sharp spikes of short-breath-panic, but he still couldn’t think of a concrete way to figure it out.

The room around him looked real enough, sharp and focussed, and there was nothing obviously _off_ about the place… It was nice and surprisingly spacious for a bathroom; and it appeared to be well stocked, just like Coran had said, but none of that helped Lance in figuring out the truth.

Well, he may as well take advantage of the opportunity to clean himself up while it was here, and just roll with the crazy if it showed up…

He carefully peeled the tattered remnants of his scratchy prison clothes off and dumped them in a corner. Idly, he wondered if they’d allow him use the incinerator to dispose of them later, or if that was too melodramatic…

Turning towards the shower, his eyes passed over the enormous mirror that arched over the basin, and got caught on his reflection.

Now, Lance had always been a skinny kid, it was something he’d hated about himself growing up, and he’d worked really hard to earn the muscle that bulked him out into a more respectable “Swimmer’s Physique”. He really hadn’t wanted to see how much of that had been lost, replaced once again by the concave belly, too prominent ribs and weak noodle-y limbs he despised.

Even worse than his embarrassingly gangly body though, was the sight of the scars that littered his torso now, left behind by the deadly artistry of Keith and his trusty knife…

_Damn it, Keith…_ Lance sighed.

It had been quite a shock back in the Infirmary, to discover that the paladin of the Red Lion was still alive and well and safe inside the Castle of Lions, and Lance hadn’t had much chance to process it properly before he fell asleep. But comparing the numb detachment he had taken the revelation with then, to the roiling intensity of his emotional state now… well, actually it was probably a good sign that he could feel so much again… but it also meant having to deal with the conflicting mess of emotions being dredged up too…

Ugh, it would be so much easier if he could just forget everything that had happened to them on that prison-ship… (Like Keith had, apparently… lucky bastard…) Because while Lance might not remember everything (and might clearly remember some things that hadn’t actually happened), he knew enough; and some part of Lance had always known that Keith really was there with him… They had been the only ones on that planet when they got captured together after all, and Lance had staked a great chunk of his sanity on that fact. (In the beginning, when the drugs wore off enough for some lucid thought to return, Lance would always spend time repeating to himself that it was only he and Keith in actual danger here, whatever he did to the others didn’t matter, it wasn’t real, they were safe in the castle-ship… he just needed to try and remember that for the next time…)

And he _knew_ now that Keith wasn’t to blame for what had happened, ( _ ~~Lance was)~~._ Of course he knew that, rationally. Whatever the Galra had done to Keith had left the poor guy completely out of his mind (like, Lance had been pretty crazy with all the hallucinating and such, but Keith wasn’t even there anymore… he hadn’t recognised Lance at all, it was like the lights were on behind his eyes, but no one was home…) and the times that Lance had seen him, he had been muzzled and chained like a feral attack dog they only ever let off leash to play with Lance like a chew toy.

So no, Lance couldn’t blame Keith for that. And if he was honest, he was shamefully, _selfishly_ grateful that Keith had been captured with him.  It had really helped Lance to know that he wasn’t completely alone in that place… ( _and wasn’t he just awful for being comforted by someone else’s suffering...)_

Well, it had been a comfort right up until Keith had gone and died on him anyway, the stupid, inconsiderate mullet… ( _he would never, ever forgive himself for that final miscalculated push back against Keith’s relentless attack…_ )

And of course, he was beyond grateful now to find that not only was Keith alive and well, and that apparently Lance hadn’t killed him in that hellscape like he’d thought… (but then, Keith must have been _not real_ for that last fight, and Lance hadn’t known _? How could he not have known?!_ He’d been so sure…) but that also meant that the team had come by and saved Keith at some point and left Lance behind...

And that, _that_ was what hurt.

That the team had managed to save Keith first ( _ ~~had prioritised Keith?)~~_ and had had to come back for Lance ( _ ~~like an afterthought~~_ )… He just couldn’t help the resentment that bubbled up in him at that, irrational as he knew it was…

Because Keith had actually been fine and safe during the single worst moment of Lance’s life, because Lance had _grieved_ for Keith… because the team had gone ahead and saved him first, like he was better than Lance, _worth more_ than Lance… Because Lance had given up his one chance to escape early on, because he wouldn’t leave without Keith, but apparently everyone else _would_ leave without Lance… Because now, Keith was all normal and sane, and he didn’t have to suffer through the memories or the fear, he wasn’t a hot mess of crazy like Lance was… He was always better than Lance, always one step ahead, and it was so painfully obvious now… So obvious to _everyone…_

Lance finally tore his eyes away from where they were tracing the terrible marks left on his body and stepped back from the mirror, unsure of when he had even approached it at all. Ugh, no. He couldn’t deal with this crap right now, he didn’t have time to get distracted by his own ridiculous insecurities. Or _Keith._ He was supposed to be concentrating on figuring out what was real (and these feelings would be especially idiotic to dwell on if his other theory turned out to be the right one; because none of this was even real anyway! He was still a prisoner and he needed to be working on an escape plan!)

( _Wait, would that mean that Keith was still here too?... Or rather, There? Was Keith even alive?... Was he even real?...)_

_( ~~Had he ever been real?~~ )… ~~~~_

There was too much to think about.

He stepped away from the mirror and turned once more towards the large shower cubicle.

Distantly, he noted that a tap was dripping relentlessly, and the sound set his teeth on edge. His feet slapped cold and sharp against the tiles, and every step he took felt strange, bringing with it a slowly mounting sense of dread. Everything in the room seemed to have warped slightly while he wasn’t looking and it suddenly felt very unfriendly…

The gentle blue glow of the castle lights flickered around him and the colour slid subtly towards a more violent purple…

The hair on the back of his neck prickled with the feeling of being watched.

“ _The Guardian Spirit of Water are you, Blue Paladin?...”_

He whipped around wildly at the sound of that voice.

_No, she couldn’t be here…._

His heart leapt into his throat but there was no one in the bathroom with him. The room was empty. He was alone.

A gentle breeze sent shivers down his spine as it caressed his face like icy fingers, and he heard her again.

“ _We’ll see about that…”_

He shuddered with sudden fear. She sounded so close… Was that real? Was he safe?...

He held his breath and waited, stock still and straining for any further sound… His heart was thumping so hard, pulse racing with adrenaline… But nothing further happened.

Slowly he became aware once more of that unceasing _drip_ and he released his breath in a long sigh. OK, so just a little more crazy to deal with then, that was fine, no biggie, he was ok… Warily, he turned back to the shower.

And almost jumped out of his skin at finding Allura stood before him.

He quickly scrambled back, accidently bruising his hip on the corner of the basin with his flailing.

“Shhit! Allura, what the hell?!” His hands slapped together painfully in his rush to cover himself, and he hunched forward in an unsuccessful bid for modesty, face heating up to his ears in a fierce blush. “How long have you been here?! Why didn’t you say something?!”

She smiled and took a step closer to him.

The water dripped faster.

“I was just putting the final preparations in place for you to bathe,” she said. Her eyes raked over his naked body unashamedly, but it was nothing like the fantasies he had once had; there was something dangerous and predatory in her gaze now. “I know how much the Blue Paladin needs his water…”

The drip became a steady stream.

“W-what are you talking about?” Lance stammered.

Allura took another deliberate step forward, right into his personal space and he gulped.

“You should get under the water, Blue Paladin.” Her smile was all teeth.

The shower was running, the water pounding loudly against the tiles.

Lance tried to take a step back and froze when her hands landed on his shoulders. He blinked, but she was already behind him, her voice whispering in his ear, “The Blue Paladin cannot be scared of water, Lance. Or are you not the true paladin of Blue after all?”

Lance stayed frozen to the spot, conflicted. He wanted this shower so badly, and he _was_ Blue’s paladin, he _thrived_ in water, but… somehow he knew that nothing good awaited him this time.

“DO AS I SAY!”

Lance flinched and Allura immediately dropped her voice back into a seductive murmur. “Or is this insubordination your confession?” Her lips were almost touching his ear. “Tell me you are not worthy,” she breathed. “Tell me you are broken.”

Lance choked and shook his head desperately in denial.

“The Blue Lion has already rejected you, Lance.”

He felt the cold empty space inside of him echo with the truth of her words.

Steam rose rapidly from the shower, filling the room with damp, foggy air. Lance could hardly breathe, it was so thick.

Without warning, Allura shoved hard into his back, making him stumble forward, caught off guard.  

Water dripped on his forehead, quickly gaining speed and pressure until there was an unrelenting torrent of water covering his face, a powerful and furious stream he couldn’t fight. He sputtered and choked but he couldn’t breathe through it, he was drowning.

“The Blue Paladin is the Guardian Spirit of Water, didn’t you know?” Allura’s voice bounced off of the tiles around him, mocking him from every direction, and in its echo he heard the Witch. “ _Let’s see if we can’t break that from you too!”_

_He tried to scream but his mouth filled with water, they were holding him under, he couldn’t escape, he thrashed and flailed but there was no air, his lungs were burning like a fire in his chest, the water surrounded him, a relentless jet, it pounded at him, harsh and stinging with too much pressure and power behind it—_

Lance collapsed to his knees, coughing and gagging.

The water disappeared abruptly and he gasped and retched into the sweet return of air, greedily gulping for it with desperate breaths.

The room was still and silent again but for his own ragged gasps and the quiet _drip, drip, drip_ of that distant tap _._ The air was dry and clear and he was utterly alone.

_Where did Allura go? She was here with him, he’d felt her, she’d been real this time…_

He curled up on the floor and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the sob that was surging in his chest.

Somehow it clawed up his throat and escaped anyway.

_What the hell was that? Was it real? Did that really just happen?_

Oh God, what if that was really happening to him right now, back with the Galra on board their prison-ship, and this was all just some elaborate fantasy he had retreated to inside his own mind to escape…

He wasn’t safe here, not really…

A bead of moisture rolled down the back of his neck ( _but was it just sweat, or was it from the water?!)._

Tears burned hot against his eyelids, and he allowed himself a long moment to just wallow in the despair that overtook him, no longer fighting the sobs that wracked his body and just letting the pain and fear sweep him up until all his hopelessness could be cried out.

He rode through his emotions until he was left exhausted and empty; dumped out once more on the cold, hard tiles of this uncertain reality.

His body ached. His mouth was dry. He didn’t want to keep doing this…

But in the end, Mama McClain didn’t raise no quitters, and giving up just wasn’t an option that Lance was ever going to take. It wasn’t in his nature.

He had to keep fighting this.

It felt like a long time before he managed to pick himself back up again though, with a stifled groan and a truly monumental effort.

He dragged his feet back over to the basin.

A wet-wipe wash was never going to measure up to his ideal standard of hygiene, but he just wasn’t willing to risk the potential horrors of the shower again, so it was that or nothing. And he couldn’t stand nothing any longer.

He met his own puffy, haunted eyes in the mirror once more as he roughly wiped the tears and grime from his face. He still looked awful. The small flannel was coarse and abrasive in his overly sensitive fingers and it was all just too much.

How much longer could he keep this up, he wondered, before they would get what they wanted? How much further could he bend in a hopeless attempt to delay the inevitable break?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter wasn't too confusing or boring! Trying to show perspectives of what Lance thinks happened/is happening little bits at a time... It's been tricky to structure, and it all makes sense to me 'cause I know what's happening/going to happen.... but I hope it reads ok to fresh eyes?
> 
> Anyway, if you enjoyed it, let me know what you think! And I'll do my absolute best to be a little speedier on the next update :)


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